


The Ocean

by stayseated



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Candles, Dat Beach Life, F/M, GTFOing, Grey is a Titan of Industry, Grey's parents, Missy is Number One Salesperson of the Year, Post-Canon, S8E4-fix, post-season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stayseated/pseuds/stayseated
Summary: They leave Westeros and Dany behind, together. (Canon, up through S8E03)





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> As if S8E4 didn't happen. I traded in tragedy for depression. But! It will gradually lift up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a multi-parter, guys. Not a one-shot.

 

 

Their life after Daenerys was perhaps doomed from the start. At the end, he was hit harder with disillusionment. He wanted to leave more passionately than she did. He conveyed it only through short, strategic statements. She read deeply into his words and felt the sting of something akin to betrayal, but she wouldn’t dare to qualify it as such because she loves him — and the people she loves don’t betray her.

His gaze unconsciously lands up — at the cloudless, dragonless sky — when she says this. And he doesn’t have to say anything else. She already knows what he is thinking. She feels a little manipulated.

 

 

When they arrive and start settling in Naath, they actually don’t seem to matter as much as she anticipated. Perhaps she was misguidedly naive, but she thought that tales of Daenerys’ pursuits would have at least reached the shores of her homeland. But actually, Missandei finds that the people are largely unaware of the rest of the world beyond the horizon. She finds that the Naathi have largely forgotten that a generation of their children were just stolen from them.

This knowledge deeply unsettles her. She holds it inside as she searches for her parents and tries to remember the home that she left. She and he end up spending month after dissatisfying month, traveling from town to town, looking for anyone who might know her name. She tells them she had brothers — Mossador and Marselen. These words that she has held tightly within herself as comfort and as unbreakable pieces of her identity do not garner any understanding or recognition.

At a certain point, she realizes that maybe she has remembered her own name wrong.

 

 

He becomes restless after the first initial few weeks. During the first few weeks in Naath though, he is elated and so in love with her. He makes these promises to himself and to the both of them, as he hooks her legs over his bare shoulders in bed and presses his mouth against her the wet center of her. She cries out. She clenches around him. He tells himself that this is what the rest of his life is going to be like — just the two of them being happy like this.

The Naathi assume they are married. The people assume that they are married because the people see them as foreigners, and that is a foreign custom. Missandei is shocked to learn the terms for husband and wife, from a restaurant owner that she has a casual chat with. She tells Missandei that Missandei’s husband is quiet — but seemingly strong.

When Missandei tries to learn the root of the word, she is told it is a very old word. She thinks that this cannot be right. She drags him to a school, just so she can pore over the books in the library — just so she could prove herself right.

She doesn’t. The word for marriage, wife, and husband are very old words. She just never was taught them before she was enslaved.

She says to him, “I was so sure —”

He says, “Mistakes happen.” He thinks this is the most placating response he can give her.

She furrows her brows. She says, “I don’t make these kinds of mistakes though.” She tells herself that she didn’t realize she made these kinds of mistakes.

 

 

His restlessness eventually exhibits as irritability, and when he is irritable, he is quiet. They are both proud of the fact that they don’t disagree with each other, that they don’t have strife, that they don’t raise their voices with each other. They think that their love is strong because of this.

They start to talk less and less with one another though, as he settles into a routine that he really hates. For money, he goes on a boat early in the morning to gather seaweed. It is physical work, and it is dull work. At the start, his hands get torn up by rope and salt water. He gets good-naturedly mocked by the captain for being so green. He has never been mocked like this before. He has forgotten what it’s like to not be a leader. He tells himself that he doesn’t really hate this work — because he’s with her and everything he has even imagined wanting he currently has — with her.

When she asks him about his day, he tells her it was the same as it always is.

This response seems to really irritate the shit out of her. She takes a lengthy pause before she says anything. And when she does say something, her voice is tight and forcefully feminine. She says, “Really? Did nothing noteworthy happen at all? In the many, many hours you were on the boat?”

Rather than tell her that she is also annoying the fuck out of him with the way she talks to him sometimes, he just leans over and kisses her on the cheek. He tells her, “I love you.” He applies the words like a salve over festering wound.

 

 

His negativity starts to wear her down. She starts to notice it only when they stopped worrying about living from day to day. She starts to notice it when there is plenty of idle time. It exhibits subtly, but consistently. It is a fundamental difference in how they see the world. She will look up at the sky and see clouds that will drop live-giving rain.

He looks up at the same sky and will mutter that he hates getting wet. She blinks at the vitriol in his tone. She also refrains from reminding him that there is water all around them. It is wet everywhere. Does this mean he hates where they are? Does this mean he hates how they are living? Does this mean he hates what she has chosen for them — actually, what he has forced upon her?

 

 

Her refusal to see the unvarnished truth starts to wear him down. Daenerys' name feels like it’s always on the tip of his tongue. He wants to tell Missandei that she wasn't the one who had to fucking stand there and make the fucking wretched choice to let his men die — and for what? Ever since, he’s been obsessed with ‘for what?’

He thinks that she must be disappointed in him. He thinks that she must see him as less of a man. He has noticed that they have been having less sex, that they have been reaching to each other less and less.

He is resolute in his love for her still, however. He tells himself that he loves her and it’s still such an impossible love — therefore it supersedes all else. He pushes Daenerys out of his mind. He ignores the tick in his jaw when Missandei still refers to her as the queen. He pushes away the way Missandei’s physical withdrawal from him makes him feel.

 

 

She was initially very shy about making a new friend at school, but then over time, Pavi’s presence in her life becomes normalize and commonplace. She trades stories with Nudho. She tells him funny stories about her colleague Pavi, just as he complains and gripes about his boat captain’s shortcomings. Because they are exchanging stories, she thinks it is okay.

Pavi runs his hand across the small of her back one day though. And on another day, he smiles at her and she feels her heart skipping a beat.

The terrible realization she makes is that it all feels familiar. It feels a lot like how it did when she was falling in love with Nudho, which confuses her — which makes her withdraw and retreat further and further from him. She was under the impression that what she feels for him is rare and impossible. She is being confronted with ubiquity. She continues to worry that what she knows in her mind and her heart isn’t right or truthful. She was wrong about Daenerys. She was wrong about Naath. She has been wrong about so many things.

She doesn’t tell Nudho about the way Pavi makes her feel. She doesn’t tell him that Pavi is just so different from he is — in ways that she might crave. Pavi smiles easily. Pavi laughs easily. Pavi touches her casually, with lightness.

 

 

Her mistake is that she doesn’t tell him what is happening. Instead, he learns about it for himself. He senses that she has been frustrated with him — at his silence perhaps — at his dullness maybe — so he tries to be what she wants him to be. He decides to take a day off from the boat. He shows up at her school with lunch, a paper-wrapped bundle he holds in his hands.

All he sees is the way she tilts her face up to the sky as she laughs at something Pavi says to her. And that is enough. That is all he needs to see.

 

 

He doesn’t come home for an entire day. He spends the night on the boat — lying flat on the deck with his eyes staring up at the stars, as light rain drips and soaks into his body. He alternates between thinking about honestly just killing her — just strangling the life from her —

And he thinks about killing himself. Because he doesn’t think he can live without her.

 

 

She is exhausted and her eyes are hollow and dark when he finally arrives home an entire day later. She looks like she’s been crying — and it’s a sight he’s seen a handful of times in his life.

He’s soaked, so he silently walks into the bedroom to change out of his clothes.

She says, “I thought you were dead. I thought — I searched everywhere for you.”

He refrains from telling her that that’s completely untrue. If she had searched everywhere, she would’ve actually found him.

 

 

He cannot handle what he now knows, so he starts punishing her. He starts driving her away, methodically, decisively, and brutally. He shuts her out. He stops talking to her. He looks at her with frustration and everything he says to her is laced with irritation. He really wants to ask her how she can fucking do this to him, when he loves her so fucking much. He really wants to tell her that if she knew she was going to do this to him, why she insisted on dragging out the fucking torture for years and years. Why didn’t she just let him die in fucking war when he had the chance to?

She finds that living with him becomes miserable. He is miserable. He is cruel and cold. He doesn’t look at her with softness anymore. He looks at her like she has stolen from him. He looks like he wants to fight with her at every turn. He sleeps with his back to her. When she touches him, he flinches.

So when Pavi kisses her — after classes are done for the day and she is taking down notes for the next day’s lessons — she lets him for a second.

 

 

She doesn’t come home for a night. And he understands the hypocrisy in him, but for him — this cannot stand. He imagines that she doesn’t love him anymore. She loves someone else — another man — an actual man. He imagines that there is no going back from this. He thinks that this is why he was made to live. He was made to live so that he could be made to feel this way. He thought that it was bleak at the end with Daenerys, but now, he realizes that it was a precursor to this kind of pain.

So he leaves. He leaves with just the clothes on his back. He tells himself she doesn’t love him — she hasn’t for a long time now. He tells himself it was their circumstances and their limited life experience that made them cling to each other. He has realized that in this afterlife, there is no place for him in her orbit. He is not even a complete fucking man.

He tells himself she is better off without him. He tells himself that she won’t miss him.

 

 

After she pushed Pavi away, she just wanted to make Nudho feel as badly as he has made her feel. So she didn’t go home. She purchased a room at an inn. She purchased herself a hot bath. And she cried in the tub all night.

She feels empty and broken inside when she drags herself back home again.

And then she finds that he has completely disappeared from her life. Without a word.

 

 

 

 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey goes home to punish himself because he's kind of an idiot. Instead of facing shame and possible violence like what he wanted and anticipated, he just finds love. Weird. Missandei looks for Grey in a terrible place because she knows her man, and she knows he's an emotional idiot. After going on the journey alone, she ends up accidentally finding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, sorry. I didn't realize that posting up part one without much context would bum people the fuck out. I just want to make clear that this is a multi-parter, not a one-shot that makes us want to slit our wrists. THIS IS PART TWO. IT IS LESS DEPRESSING THAN PART ONE.

  
  
  
  


He has some regrets in life. He actually has a lot of regrets in life — but he has only started to name them and inventory them. He regrets a lot of his youth. He regrets that he is prone to short-sightedness. He regrets his unrelenting and blind belief in a cause. He regrets forgetting his true name. He regrets meeting her. He regrets loving her the way that he does.

The days are longer without her. If he thought that the mundanity of life without threat of death was dull and pain-filled, he actually finds that life without her stretches out infinitely.

He repeatedly looks down into an empty wine cup for the first time in his life, and he repetitively tries to drink and sleep the pain away. He vomits on the side of the road. He begins losing weight. He tells himself it does not matter because his body has nothing left to fight for.

  
  
  
  
  
  


So he goes back home because he thinks it’s the kind of punishment that he deserves. He expects to be beaten, but actually, he collapses and then spontaneously starts crying into the ground.

There are immediately hands on his back, trying to pick him back up. He tells them no — brokenly. He has made himself too physically weak to fight them off. And then sight of his face — as distraught and tortured as it is — strikes something in them. Mostly a memory.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He didn’t think that his mother and father would still be alive. He didn’t think he cared to know. He didn’t think they would remember him. He didn’t think they would care to know him at all.

But strangers plead with him — even as he repeatedly misunderstands the language on purpose — because he refuses to hear the familiarity in the sound and the cadence.

Strangers start to drag him to a place, but he digs his feet into the ground and he refuses.

So they have to meet him where he is at.

She screams in pain, through her palms and her fingers, and then she runs to him right away. He thinks that this place is so hot and humid and suffocating. She clutches his sweaty face in her rough and firm hands, as she sobs, as she tells him a litany of things that he cannot even begin to understand, in a language that he no longer remembers. He looks at her helplessly — as she hits her palm against his chest. He belated realizes that she is pounding on his heart — she is taking ownership of it. She is saying that he belongs to her.

He starts to say no — because he doesn’t belong to nobody anymore — but the words feel too terrible.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Missandei first searches for him in Astapor — it takes her a long time to get there because she is no longer associated with the same kind of influence she used to have. She has to slowly pay her way there. She scrimps and she saves her money — as she cries every night because of the distance of time. Sometimes she cries because she is sad. Other times she cries because she thinks she might hate him now. Every now and then, she cries as she thinks that she might hate Daenerys now, because this is the aftermath they have to live in now. Mostly, she cries because it feels like heartbreak.

Missandei has to give up this entire life that they made together in Naath. She has to explain to those who have learned to care about them — of her humiliation. She has to explain to her people — to the friends and acquaintances that they have acquired, that he left her, without the respect of telling her why to her face.  

She says goodbye to Pavi — to his face — for this reason. She doesn’t think that he deserves from her, what Nudho has done to her. Even though it is not love, she knows that Pavi feels something for her. And even though it is not love, she feels something for him, too.

She tells him, _I am sorry. I wish it could’ve been different._

And here, she selfishly actually means _for her_. She wishes it could’ve been different _for her._

  
  
  
  
  
  


She searches for him in Astapor because she knows he hates King’s Landing. He hates Winterfell. He just hates all of the West, and he has vowed to never return north. She still believes him in this respect.

She looks for him in Astapor because he explicitly told her, many times, that there is nothing left for him in the Summer Isles. She still is so prone to believing him.

But she cannot believe it herself — that she is going back to the place where he was groomed to be enslaved for a lifetime. She cannot believe that this is the best bet she has of finding him.

She realizes that this is an impossible task. She realizes that if he wants to stay gone, he can easily stay gone. The world is massive. She cannot even realistically imagine finding him in the huge city of Astapor, even if he was there. She also doesn’t have unlimited funds at her disposal in finding him.

So at some point, it might just be the end for her. His absence will result in her untimely death.

Or she will spend years and years of her meager life looking for him.

Because she has to try. Of course she has to try.

She is so fucking angry with him though. Most of her conscious hours are spent actually thinking about how she is going to beat him to death when she finally finds him. She told him once before to not leave her without a word. She thought that night meant something permanent. She has decided that she is going to stab him in the heart with a dull knife fifty times until he dies, until the life drains from his fucking eyes.

She cries in her sleep all the time though. She wakes up distraught, with her heart pounding fast in her throat all the time though. It’s the first time in life she has been alone — in the physical sense. She is alone to make her own decisions. She is also alone, without him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


In time, his mother and father gradually fill in these holes that he didn’t really realized mattered to him.

His father keeps touching his face softly — and he has never really known a soft touch from another man before. His father keeps staring at his expression — because they look exactly the same.

His brother is initially wary of him. His brother thinks that he is only there to haunt their parents and cause their parents more pain.

He flinches over the collectivist way in which they talk.

It takes months for his mother to finally stop spontaneously sobbing at the sight of him. She tells him she keeps getting struck dumb by how old he is. He doesn’t know how to respond to this. He doesn’t know how to hold her to console her. He just stands stiffly and watches her cry. He thinks that she doesn’t deserve this from him — just like Missandei didn’t deserve this from him.

He actually tries to leave them too. He finds that this is what he has become good at. He finds he cannot exist like how they want him to be, so he needs to go.

But his parents don’t have the heart to lock him in the room that they made specifically for him — with trinkets from his childhood that he doesn’t even remember. His parents get misty-eyed looking for recognition when he looks at these wood carvings — these toys that his father had made for him.

Instead of locking him up, his folks just keep vigil outside of his bedroom door every night — at cost to their own health. Every time he leaves the house to go on a walk, his mother tries not to overwhelm and oppress him, but he can sense her anxiety. He sees it in her eyes. She is scared that every time he walks out the door will be the last time she sees him.

He sees her white hair. He sees her gaunt face. He tells her she has to eat more. She holds his calloused hands in her soft, delicate ones. She tells him she will eat. And he knows that he has to stay with them a little longer — until more of the fear has passed for her. Fear is something he understands well now.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She gets robbed at knifepoint in Astapor, looking for him — and thankfully, nothing else happens. The thieves are basically still children. And they take away about a week’s worth of work.

After the incident, she is unbelievably incensed. She tells herself that this would not be happening to her if he had stayed. She tells herself that he was supposed to protect her forever — because that is what he promised her. She tells herself again that when she finds him, she will kill him. She says it in a mantra so that she can think of nothing else, because the actual truth is worse than that.

She becomes more vigilant, after this. She carries a knife always, after this. She looks every man and male child in the face with defiance when she walks past, after this.

She is prone to talking to him in her head, so she tells him, _fuck you, I don’t need you anymore._

  
  
  
  
  
  


It takes months for him to learn enough of the language in order to have a real conversation of substance with them. His mother — and he has accepted this as a fact now, so he refers to her as such, which really pleases her — holds onto him constantly. He feels very claustrophobic about it. She keeps telling him these stories about how he was a rather affectionate child. She keeps blandly observing that he is so different now, but still wholly her boy. She explains and tells him that she has to hold onto him — and he has to put up with it, and he has to humor her — because she has been praying for him to come back like this for decades. She tells him that she cannot let him go again.

She also tells him it was her fault. She lost sight of him for just a moment, and he was snatched. She tells him that they looked for him for days — then months — and then years. They passionately tell him that they never gave up. He keeps a certain belief completely to himself. He believes that it doesn’t matter how hard they tried, because in the end, they didn’t find him at all.

His father tells him that they put in notices, in cities all over the islands. His father tells him that it nearly bankrupted the family — searching for him.

His brother tells him that it was actually not their mother’s fault that he was lost. It was actually his brother’s fault. He was supposed to be watching. That’s what big brothers do. But he was being selfish and got distracted by a sweets cart.

His brother also has his face. So does his mother. And definitely his father.

And they keep calling out to him to make sure he is really there. They keep saying, “Maroras.”

He keeps correcting them. He keeps telling them that his name is actually: “Torgo Nudho.”

This different name is something that pains them all so deeply. But he cannot give it up. It’s what he was called when Daenerys freed him. It’s what his men referred to him as. It’s who he was when they died under his command. It’s what Missandei used to utter — the various ways in which she used to talk to him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He tells them about her because they want to know so much about his life — in the time that they’ve been apart from each other. He doesn’t want to continue breaking his parents’ hearts — they look old and his words just constantly seem to weaken them — so he glosses over every fucking shitty thing that has ever happened to him ever since he was lost to them, and he just focuses on the good.

The good is her.

He tells them that she was the light in his darkness. She made him want to keep on living when it was bleak. She made him feel things that he thought he was incapable of. They had a very nice life together for a while.

His mother curiously asks him: _Is she dead?_

She is blunt. She also simply wants to know why he is alone and why they aren’t together.

He flinches. He says: _No, I don’t think so._ He says: _I don’t know._

It’s not the first time he says this — it’s actually the latest in a string of many, many times. His parents have noticed — with such alarm — how cold and unfeeling he can come across at times.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She actually stops over in the Summer Isles because it’s close enough to Naath — and because she wants to light a candle for him. She stops over not expecting to find him there at all.

She stops because he told her his people are not peaceful — and at this point, it doesn’t rattle her. She is not scared. She just wants to honor him.

She just misses him painfully, and she actually thinks that maybe it will hurt less if she can look on the faces of his people. Maybe it will hurt less if she can see his kinfolk. Maybe she will meet a man who looks just like him, and then she will just kill herself, because a man who looks like him _still_ will not be him so it won’t fucking matter because only he is who she wants.

Ebonhead is hot — somehow hotter than Naath. The dry skin on her chapped lips feel paper thin and there are salt crystals on the fine hair of her arms because she was splashed by the ocean on her way in.

She takes her shoes off when she arrives at temple. She covers her head. She kneels. She lights a candle made of suet. She observes that they eat a lot of meat here — which is distinctly different from home.

And then she corrects herself. Because there is no home anymore.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She stutters in the Summer Tongue because she hasn’t had much practice speaking this language.

When she returns the candle holder to the shopkeeper — an item she borrowed on good faith, leaving no collateral behind — she lingers a little bit to practice the language. She also lingers because she thinks that the woman makes her heart ache, because she looks so much like him.

The shopkeeper asks Missandei if her prayers were good — or at least, this is how Missandei understands it.

She nods bashfully. She haltingly says that she tried her best. This is not her culture — obviously, of course. She was kind of watching everyone else and trying to copy them without embarrassing herself.

The shopkeeper asks: _Where are you from?_

She says, “Naath.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


So much time has passed, and it must be fated, because she actually just finds him.

Of course this is not at all accidentally. Of course the shopkeeper realizes who Missandei probably is and the shopkeeper most assuredly grabbed her by the hand and left the wares in the care of a neighbor merchant. Of course Missandei is pulled clear across town. Of course there is about twenty minutes of bewildered walking, on cracked dirt roads.

Sweat is dripping off her face when she gets there. She is almost completely sure of who she is about to see because there are so many signs pointing to this. His mother also keeps telling Missandei that she has to meet her son.

Missandei asks: _What is his name?_

“Maroras.”

And then they both frown over that — for different reasons.

Her heart is pounding.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She sees him standing around with other Summer Islander men, casually, wearing the local clothes. He is wearing bright color — red, the color of rust — not the drab darkness that he used to wear.

She has to blink, even though she has spent the last half an hour preparing for this possibility.

His jaw drops when he sees her.

She says, “Torgo Nudho.”

He actually blurts, “Oh. Fuck.”

  
  
  
  
  



	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey totally freaks out because his ex showed up and is all like, "What's up, asshole?" So he does the mature thing and just hides from her. His parents has hearts in their eyes for Missy, so they give her the grand ol' tour of Grey as the cute child he no longer is. And then there might be some sort of confrontation on a beach?

  
  
  
  
  


They are very different in these tactile ways. For all of her mental and even physical preparations — she actually cannot bring herself to stab him in the heart with a knife when she sees him again. She keenly feels the eyes of his people staring at her, for one. She didn’t realize how hard it would be to beat him to death — with an audience watching.

Also, she has already developed this fondness for his mother because his mother has already been a champion for her. It would be uncomfortable and completely mortifying to kill her coward of a son, right in front of her face.  

He, on the other hand, can enact violence without conscious thought. He can dole out pain with a legion of men watching.

She also knows the other way that the propensity of his body exhibits. She also knows the way he used to lay his hands and his fingers and his mouth on her body.   

She can’t even look him in the face right now. She is too angry and grateful and happy. He can’t look at her either. He is too ashamed and sad and unbelieving.

  
  
  
  
  
  


After a lengthy and deeply awkward silence — one in which they are avidly watched — the older man finally clears his throat. He is sitting in the shade with his dusty ankle hooked over his kneecap. He actually starts talking to his wife. Missandei can pick out bits and pieces of his statement. He is asking his wife, _who is watching the shop?_

His wife exclaims loudly. She says, _“AHH!”_ in this croak that sounds shockingly dramatic and . . . funny.

It pushes a shocked laughed from the corner of the walkway. A man is sitting on an upside-down bucket, with dark grease staining his hands and clothes, with lanterns at his feet. He is in the middle of refilling them. Behind him is a hearth and low-burning charcoal. There is a vat of wax and fat. There are lines of hanging wicks — candles.

The man gets admonished by the shopkeeper for laughing at his own mother as she probably gets robbed blind. She tells them that Hannan is keeping one eye on it for a while, but Hannan has to contend with her wares. Their mother snaps at her son and tells him to go run and help her, as he holds up his dirty hands — chuckling — and asks her something with wide-eye exaggerated innocence that Missandei doesn’t understand. But it’s soon clear that it’s a joke because he ducks underneath her swatting hand.

She’s trying to hit him as she simultaneously laughs at him — and in the midst of all of this, Nudho steps his dusty bare feet into a pair of sandals. Missandei is tracking every movement that he makes.

He is wincing against the bright sun, his eyes nearly shut as he talks to the shopkeeper. As the sun blasts into his face, he basically says, _Ma, I will go watch the shop._

And then directly to Missandei — out of the side of his mouth — he says, “You can stay here. They won’t hurt you. I will be back later.”

She actually bitterly says, “Oh, will you? You will not just board a ship and leave me behind without saying goodbye _again?”_

In response to this, he just stares at her for a beat. He says nothing as his heart slams hard in his chest.

Hers actually aches. Because this kind of silence from him is actually so deeply familiar and nostalgic to her.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She feels overwhelmed because she came here expecting a fight — whether she was going to fight for him, fight with him, fight to get him back, or fight for the repossession of her own life — but what she is actually getting is so complicated and unexpected.

It feels emotional — the way his mother refuses to let go of her hand — as his mother and father unbelievably continue to take her sudden presence in stride. Missandei gets dragged from place to place — from room to room. They talk to her excitedly and in rapid-fire syllables that she has a hard time picking up. It takes her a few moments to realize that they are showing her all of the places that he has put his indellible mark.

They show her this groove in wood — in a doorway — and they talk to her like it is supposed to mean something. She has to guess that this is something that he maybe accidentally made — maybe when he was very young based on how enthusiastically they are laughing over this mar.

His father mimes a sword. He swings it. Out of the smile framing his mouth, he makes a sound like, _“Sshk!”_ as the side of his hand hits the post.

All of this serves to do is make Missandei wonder if _this_ is why he left her. Maybe he left her because she made him unhappy, and yet in his deep unhappiness, he still had the sense that there are still these people out there for him to still find. Maybe there was something in him that knew that she was merely a conduit to his family.

She is just so angry. She is so angry that she was promised a life with him, and then he took it back. She is so angry that she was made to lose her faith and her queen and her friend and her love — to have _this_ shoved into her face. She is also so angry that she spent so much time on Naath craving and searching for what he has just effortlessly stumbled upon.

Sensing her exhaustion, she gets shown to a room with a bed. His father leaves them — for privacy. And then his mother holds onto her face, in her palms.

His mother whispers to her this gratitude. Missandei can’t understand enough of the words, but tears still spring to her eyes. She thinks that his mother is thanking her for keeping him safe.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He doesn’t know what to do because he didn’t plan for this kind of eventuality. He continues to be underdeveloped and a bit remedial — in knowing how to manage his emotions. He doesn’t know how to let it leak out productively all the time, so right now, he hides out in the shop for hours, all the while telling himself that he is working because it is his purpose now. He does a different kind of vocation now. He counts candles with his fingers blindly, and then he wraps them for a woman whose name he doesn’t remember. She smiles at him and asks after his parents. He tells her they are fine — normal — same as always.

She drops coins into his palm and wishes him a good day.

He lingers after the sun has gone down. It’s because he is afraid, but he tells himself it’s because he has to do inventory. He counts more than three times. He checks the numbers in the book more than four times. He looks out into darkness — to where the horizon should be, in the inky black.

And then his hand reaches for the dagger that he always has tucked away in the folds of his pants. He is holding the hilt tightly in his fingers. He is pressing it into the heel of his hand, so that he can be confident in the force he needs to push it into a body.

He silently panting out his adrenaline, as the soft, buttery glow of lantern light gradually crawls over the entire interior of the shop.

It’s his brother. His brother now knows how careful he has to be, when approaching. His brother knows that he has to walk slowly, and with noise or light — with a precursor.

“Maroras?”

He initially refused to answer to this name because it’s no longer his name. They showed him a frayed, translucent piece of paper with a childlike scrawl — his — to prove to him that at one point, he wore this name proudly. He has told him that everything that happened to him in the past no longer matters. The fact that he once accepted this name because he was a helpless child does not matter.

But they have been insistent and they have perservered. They absolutely refuse to call him by the name that he was enslaved under.

He says, “Yes?”

“I was sent to fetch you,” his brother explains. They have completely different accents and manners of speaking even though they look very similar. “Are you coming home soon?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


She can’t sleep, but she pretends to sleep. She lies down on his bed for hours. She looks at his things. She flips through his books. She notes that he reads mostly in the Common Tongue — and that hurts her because it makes her hopeful. She tells herself that maybe he does this because he wants to remember her.

And then she remembers that she is so mad at him. So she reminds herself that he was initially terrible at pronouncing his Rs. She reminds herself that he intially was awkward with self-referential pronouns — as if these minor critiques make a difference in terms of how she actually feels about him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They kind of skirt around each other silently after he arrives home. His parents are beaming — because this is what they have prayed for. They cannot believe that life can be so full of sorrow and also happiness.

He is miserable. He has decided that she is probably here to tell him off before she exits from his life. He understands that he deserves this.

She is also miserable. She is miserable because nothing has changed. He is cold to her. She is an interloper in his new life. When he manages to look at her, he looks at her as if he doesn’t know her. She still does not know what she has done to make him hate her like this.

They strategically avoid speaking directly to one another, as they simultaneously pay a lot of attention to his parents and his brother’s family. His brother’s daughter asks a lot of questions because she does not know better — she cannot sense that they want to avoid explaining who they are to each other right now.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They give her extra blankets that his mother has sewn — even though it is unseasonably hot. She tells them — in his presence — that she has only planned for this stopover in Ebonhead to be just for a day.

They pretend she didn’t talk at all. They tell her that they will spend the morning wrapping squash and chicken in banana leaves. She tells them she does not prefer to eat chicken — and they don’t hear that, either. They tell her that it is for the next day’s dinner.

  
  
  
  
  
  


His parents like to believe that the terrible things that have happened to him can be erased with their love. He knows that this is impossible. Love does not make anyone forget. Love does not heal anyone. Love ebbs, and flows, and sometimes it dries up.

He decides to go sleep on the beach to give her privacy. Because he is not who he used to be to her anymore.

  
  
  
  
  
  


There are a few key things about the way they used to love each other. It was very quiet. It was very unspoken. It was explorative. It required constant defining and redefining because they were learning as they were going. It might have been situational. It was based around fear sometimes. They were afraid of saying too much to each other sometimes.

She does not think she would have picked him to love if she had been able to stay behind in Naath with her family. He does not even know who he would be, if he hadn’t been stolen by slavers and broken. He cannot speculate. His imagination is limited, and he still thinks it’s a pointless exercise — to wonder what if.

He sees really well in the dark.

She does not, so she is stumbling and tripping and also constantly falling down in the sand as she fights the wind coming off the hard ocean waves to go and find him.

He can sense — hear and feel — her efforts really clearly. There are certain aspects of him that will never go away. There are certain things that are ingrained forever.

He groans. He reluctantly gets back to his feet and turns around. He half-heartedly calls out her name. He says, “Missandei! I am over here.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


She can’t see his eyes or his face in the dark. So after she trips over a driftwood and falls down inelegantly with her knees digging into soft sand one last time — right in front of his feet — she just stays down. It doesn’t matter anyway.

She presses her palm into the giving ground. She is trying to punish him, as she says, “Thank you for taking me to the beach. You kept one promise at least.”

Honestly — her sharp bitterness, on the heels of her falling down in a lump right in front of him — is kind of funny. His mouth curves into a smile as he looks down at her — as he watches her switch into three different sitting positions, before she just decides to stay uncomfortable. She settles on her haunches.

He crosses his arms over his chest. He doesn’t know why he is still standing. He asks, “How have you been?”

“Terrible,” she mutters. “I’ve been really terrible. And it is absolutely your fault.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey is trying to just mind his own business chilling on a really dark beach feeling his emotions all by himself like that's a normal thing people do all the time — but Missy shows up and is like, ALL in his business. They have an awkward series of conversations, like how people who have never been taught to express their feelings do — until they start talking about boats. Then Grey totally comes alive.

  
  
  
  


 

When he takes a seat next to her in the sand, all she can see is the shadow that he makes. She can also feel some of the warmth emanating off of him, but he is far enough away that they are not touching.

They sit in silence for a while — a very well-worn habit of theirs. Neither of them are good at telling stories. This became very apparent after they left Westeros for the final time, after they settled in Naath and found that there was an intimidating amount of time to fill. She remembers sitting underneath an awning, holding a fat coconut with its water sloshing over her hands. She remembers marveling to him that such a perfect thing even exists. She remembers him smiling quietly at her — stifling his amusement and his laughter into silence — heard only through his eyes.

She remembers the vendor watching them, charmed. She remembers the vendor asking them how they came to make one another’s acquaintance.

She remembers how they answered in only a handful of very efficient syllables.  She also remembers realizing how strange they are, when she later met people who have the talent of spending long, long minutes talking about very little.

Softly, under the wind, she asks, “Do you . . . spend a lot of time on this beach?”

She can sense his shrug. She can hear him clear his throat, before he says, “Sometimes.”

And that is all he says.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He is bracing himself for heartbreak again. He lies down for it — because he wants to look at the stars as the rising tide threatens to touch the tip of his toes. When he used to miss her, he would do this. He would look up at the sky and remind himself that she could be looking at the exact same thing as he was. He would tell himself that there is still a sense of connection between the two of them.

About fifteen minutes pass before he asks her if she is cold.

That makes her smile to herself, because her face is greased with dried sweat. She is actually the very opposite of cold. She is melting.

She says to him, “The breeze from the ocean feels nice.”

He says to her, “Do you want to get closer to the water?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


They are both fighting awkwardness — and both hyper-aware of it. Now, he is armed with a certain knowledge. He has seen the way his mother interacts with his father. He has seen the way his brother talks to their parents. He has seen how Ami grabs his attention, holds it in her wide curious eyes, and refuses to let him have even a moment of peace and quiet sometimes. He now knows there is something else that was taken away from him when he was cut. In losing his identity and in gaining a lifelong, choiceless vocation, he also lost a personality.

He often examines the toys that he used to play with — he has been remembering his childhood with his parents more and more now — and he remembers flickers of these moments when — honestly — his mother told him to shut his mouth because he was giving her a headache with his incessant questions. He has remembered that he used to be talkative.

She suffers from the same kind of affliction. She is sure that Pavi only fooled himself into thinking he was in love with her because he thinks she is beautiful. She is sure that she wondered if she was falling in love with Pavi because he made her heart pound hard, and that effect that Nudho used to have on her was waning day by day. She now knows that she is a childlike idiot, and that is not what love is at all.

She tells him, “Your mother and father — they seem very kind.”

He quietly says, “They are.”

She says, “I did not even consider that you would have a brother.”

He says, “I also have a sister and a niece,” referring to his Ami and Lissiana.

He refrains from telling her that his family is a little bit smaller than others, because his parents could not bear to have another child after they lost him. They told him that they felt that having another child would be like trying to replace or erase him. He refrains from telling her that he did not know that — the entire time he has been alive — there have always been people who have been loving him so relentlessly. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s been struggling to reconcile this new knowledge with what he previously believed to be true about himself.

In the silence — with her heartbeat throbbing in her throat — she swallows the croak and the lump to no avail — and then she shuts her eyes tightly before she says, “I looked for you in Astapor. And Yunkai. And Meereen. Daario sends his regards, incidentally.”

“You met with Daario?” His voice is a low timbre. And he is purposefully missing her entire intent completely.

“I wanted to ask him if he knew where you were.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


He left Naath because he didn’t matter to her anymore, and he did not think that there was a point in announcing his departure to someone who no longer cared for him anymore. He analyzed their life and he projected into the future. He can’t give her a child. The Naathi man can. He does not embody brightness and optimism because he is very settled into who he is now, but that Naathi man can make her smile and make her laugh with his positivity and his funny little remarks and stories. He has spent enough time around Naathi people and he has observed their ways. He does not give one shit about butterflies. He thinks they are boring, and they all look the same. He cannot spend hours talking about one fucking butterfly. He is not made that way. He is not one of them. He will never be one of them. For one, he is very violent — and he eats a lot of meat.

It just made so much sense for him to gracefully bow out of her life so that she can finally be happy with someone better than him.

He doesn’t know how to accuse her of betraying him by being with another man — he actually does not know the mechanics of how to throw such a bitter and emotional and wounded utterance out there — so he resorts to what he has become good at. He apologizes to her.

He says, “I am sorry for leaving without saying goodbye.”

“Why did you?”

“We were not happy together.”

She gasps — or she scoffs — he isn’t quite sure. Her voice takes on that corrective tone, like how she used to sound when she was teaching him the Common Tongue. She tells him, “ _You_ were not happy with me.”

 _Because you were fucking another man_.

Again, he cannot bring himself to say this out loud to her. So he resorts to pressing his lips together tightly into an angry thin line.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Talking with him continues to be — in a word — _frustrating._ Though to be honest, she is not doing much better. She can’t explicitly tell him about how he shattered her heart so comprehensively. She has to be roundabout, so she has to tell him how many weeks she spent in Astapor, how many steps she walked, how her feet hurt and ached — and then bled. She has to tell him about how she went days without talking to anyone at times. She has to explain that she actually learned a lot — in looking for him. She learned how to speak up for herself. She learned how to keep herself safe.

All of this knowledge was hard-won and a little torturous because she was scared that her education was pulling her farther and farther from him. But education and wisdom often come unbidden.

For instance, she could not help but learn how to procure different kinds of moneys and how to acquire things for different kind of prices and goods.

“Bartering,” he supplies. This is something he is really good at — his mind naturally understands it, and that is why he was always in charge of their money and the small number of their material possessions — all the things that he ended up leaving behind when he left.

“Yes, bartering,” she says. “I can do that now.”

“Do you like it?”

“No,” she says. She touches her fingertips to her chest. “It makes me very nervous, and it makes me stutter sometimes.” She nods once. “But I can do it now.”

Another thing that she is exerting a lot of effort talking _around_ is that she is trying to convey to him that she no longer needs his protection. She has figured it out. She can do this herself. She does not die without him. She does not need him to subside. She could live without him if she had to — just like how easily he is living without her.

“That is good,” he says.

“I feel pride in myself,” she says.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They have to get up and walk a few steps back to avoid being drenched by the rolling waves. She stumbles around in the dark, so he holds out his hand briefly to help her gain her bearings. It makes her face flush in the dark. It makes him want to just fucking to drown himself in the fucking ocean.

Instead of doing that, he asks her, “When are you leaving to go back home to Naath?” He asks her this because he doesn’t know how to ask her why she even bothered spending so much time looking for him. Why look for him when she has a new love?

She says, “Perhaps tomorrow.”

Her mind is actually screaming out against his idiocy. Her mind is shouting that he is still fucking cruel and heartless and cold and spiteful. Her mind is in disbelief, that he will just let her go so easily, _again_. She cannot believe that she now means so little to him.

“I can take you to the boat,” he says, without looking at her face. He feels dull inside as he adds, “I know a captain. Good sailor. She will keep you safe.”

“That is quite all right,” she says, feeling that familiar prickle of irritation that he elicits from her. “I have another boat I will take.”

“No,” he says, also feeling that same annoyance with her stubbornness that he used to feel all the time. “Just take my friend’s boat. It is the better boat.”

“It is _not_ the better boat,” she declares. And then really quickly — she blurts out, “You have a _friend?”_

“Kojja,” he mutters quickly. “And it _is_ the better boat. It is the best boat. There is no better boat than best. That is the definition of best. It means best — the most. _You_ taught me this. _Remember?”_

“I _remember,”_ she says snappishly, trying to swallow down how he can still make her feel sometimes. “I do not care what is best. I want to go on the boat I picked for myself.”

“But it is _not_ _best_ ,” he says back, his tone clipped and his voice tight. He always starts to lose his fluency when he gets emotional and worked up like this. This is why he heatedly says, “I don’t understand why Missandei go on shit-boat when there is best boat. _Why?_ Shit-boat do something I do not see? Shit-boat fly? Like dragon?”

“Torgo Nudho!” she finally shouts. “Stop it! I don’t want to hear it! I want to go on my boat! I want to pick a shit-boat! Because I get to _pick it!_ Do you understand? _”_

He is staring at her like she is crazy. He says, _“No!”_

  
  
  
  
  
  


So they argue about which boat she will take home for about an hour. It is a stupid, circular argument. Her tactic is based on emotion — based on her own agency and the power of her own decision-making. His tactic is — of course — cold, hard, logistical facts. He really does not understand why anyone who is intelligent would take a shit-boat that costs more money than the best boat that he can procure for her — for no money. He looks at her in disbelief — like she is stupid even though he knows that she is not stupid because he knows that she is actually so very intelligent. But she behaves like this — often. She behaves in the face of logic very often. And he does not understand _that_. She wanted to stay in Westeros even though all signs pointed at them to fucking just leave. He watched the extermination of the Dothraki. He watched the sacrifice of his men for people who didn’t deserve it — as if the lives of the Unsullied were worth less. He told himself that she didn’t look at the loss with her own eyes, and that is why she was _so stupid_ and fought to stay. He remembers pleading with her and telling her that he was gravely wrong. It was all wrong. It wasn’t their war after all.

Missandei’s heart is slamming hard in her chest, her blood is hot, and her body is thrumming with aliveness, as these loose words fall from her mouth, as she carelessly accuses him of being a bully.

He does not know what this word means, but he already does not like it. He can tell it is an insult, so he throws it right back at her. He tells her that _she_ is the bully.

She tells him, “You don’t even know what that word _means!_ ”

He says, “You are elitist. And condescending at times.”

Her mouth actually drops open. And his eyes are good in the dark, so he sees it happen. He sees how shocked she is that he knows these words.

So he answers her unasked question. He says, “I read books without you.”

The bald reference to his life without her is a trigger. It is like a slash from a knife. And for a moment, she stares at him like she does not even know who he is anymore.

And because she is so hurt and angry and confused over what she has done to make him feel this way and behave this way toward her — she lashes out.

She shouts, “You _made me_ betray our queen! You _made me_ leave Westeros before the end of the war!”

He spits out, “She is not the queen.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy totally plays the what-if game all wrong and behaves like a total woman because she thinks choosing happiness for herself ruined everyone's lives. When she's not thinking about how she has ruined everything, she just has the heart pangs. Aw. To quench her thirst, she decides to take on party planning duties. Meanwhile, in the Summer Isles, Grey gets told by his dad, whilst being phenomenal at just about everything he ever attempts. Except, you know, communicating in a straightforward and healthy way. Finally, Missy gets a little jelly because this is the first time in life where the both of them actually have romantic options other than just each other.

  
  
  


 

In her angriest moments, she might still believe that he forcefully took away her ability to make a decision, when he made her choose — him or Daenerys. In essence, he made her choose the person that she loved more.

She chose him. And it doomed them all.

In the beginning of their life on Naath together — she was ensconced in the bliss. She told herself that she was with the love of her life. She told herself that being with him was what pure happiness felt like. She truly believed that the rest of life would be an smooth and easy coast.

She didn’t anticipate how her latent anger would grow over time, over what she thought he made her do. She didn’t realize that it would affect how she felt about him — how she would view him in their worst moments together. Sometimes she viewed their life together as cursed — because of what she chose.

Oftentimes, Missandei still obsesses over what would have come to pass, if they had stayed in Westeros and had fought alongside Daenerys, as they had both vowed. Maybe Daenerys would be queen right now. Maybe the two of them still would have eventually made it to Naath together, but maybe in that version of events, she wouldn’t have to internally debate over whether he is a betrayer and a serial abandoner.

When he left Daenerys, so did the rest of the Unsullied because it was to him that they were loyal. Missandei sometimes is so sure that this made all the difference. Maybe with the Unsullied, the queen wouldn’t have been so weakened and disadvantaged. Maybe with Torgo Nudho, Rhaegal would not have been slain. And maybe with all of them together, Daenerys would have been able to finish out what she wanted to conquer.

Sometimes the deep guilt that Missandei feels — in choosing love over loyalty — can only manifest as anger toward him. Their love may have costed Daenerys everything.

And Missandei has trouble letting such naked self-interest sit comfortably within herself because she was never taught to want things for herself. It is never going to be what she can easily grab for herself.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She ends up departing the next day, on a boat of her choosing. She leaves because she can clearly see that he is healthy, well-cared for, and loved by many other people now. He doesn’t need her in the same way that he used to. She might not have a slot in his life anymore. He has an entire family and a community that surrounds it. He even has friends now — or at least, _at least one_ friend. She can tell that he is adored, despite his best intentions to sabotage other people’s adoration of him. She understands why people love him. She knows that it’s easy to see what is in his heart.

She has more or less kept herself stagnant, as she searched for him. This is why she supposed that it is time for her to really make a real effort at carrying on with the rest of her life, without being haunted and burdened by things that she cannot go back and change.

She does not let him take her to the boat. She opts to say goodbye to him outside of his family home. She wants to prove to him that she does not need him in this way anymore. She still feels thick inside, over what has happened to them. She really did not anticipate that they’d break apart like this after choosing to love each other.   

She embraces his father. She holds his mother and kisses the woman on the cheek. She lets herself be picked up by his brother.

Then, instead of straightforwardly saying goodbye to her, Nudho just asks, “Why did you give over so much time looking for me?”

She says to him, “You know why.”

It stirs up a memory for him — for the both of them actually. And in response to this, he clenches his jaw and cuts eye contact. And then — after some very long seconds of deliberation, he really reluctantly says, “Come back and visit us — if you want to. We will be here.”

He articulates it this way because he still can’t allow himself to be vulnerable enough to tell her that she should come back and visit him, specifically.

“Same to you,” she says quietly. And then a little bit louder, she says to the rest of his family, “I mean, same to you all. You are all welcomed in Naath.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


She gave up the home that they used to dwell in together in order to go find him, so when she gets back to Naath, she finds a smaller home that she can comfortably afford on her modest teacher’s salary. She also goes back to that line of work because it’s all she can do — and she does enjoy it. But she finds that she also doesn’t have much of a choice here, either.

She smiles back at Pavi when he welcomes her back with a robust hug.

He asks her if she found what she was looking for.

She tells him that she did.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He is rendering out the fat from a goat that he has slaughtered and butchered himself. The skin will become hide. The bones will be boiled down into a soup. The meat will be cooked and also preserved in salt and dried. And tallow will become candles and soap. His family continues to marvel at how quickly he picks up all of the trade skills of the family business. He awkwardly does not think it is noteworthy. He used to command an army of thousands.

Now, he does _this._

He is stirring the vat of tallow slowly with a paddle as his father watches. He has taken over a lot of the work that his mother and father used to do — because he’s still young and strong and this is physical work. They are old, so they are probably better suited for the management of the shop, though, to be honest, he has taken over a lot of the responsibilities there, too.  

In the Summer Tongue, his father asks: _Why did you let her go?_

He responds with: _Which time are you referring to?_

His father looks mightily disapproving. He says: _If you have to narrow it down to a specific instance — then the problem might be you, son._

  
  
  
  
  
  


Pavi helps her procure new things for her new home. He does it under the guise of being a friend and being helpful. During her travels, she has sharpened her sense of intuiting people’s actual intentions versus their stated intentions. Sometimes it is called a healthy skepticism. She used to see it as doubt in faith. He was always better at this than she was. She used to get so weighed down by his constant distrust. She now sees the past differently. She now thinks that this skill would have been very useful — years and years ago with Tyrion and especially with Daenerys.

She finds that Pavi is not as thorough. He is opinionated surely, but she can easily poke holes in his beliefs after a few questions. She finds that after he’s been caught in an inconsistency, he just laughs it off and behaves like it does not matter that much to him — like it is not so grave and serious and meaningful. She finds that he just laughs a lot — sometimes just to fill in space because he is uncomfortable with silence.

When he tries to hold her hand out in the open and make a claim to her in front of others — she waits until they are alone again to correct him because she does not want to embarrass him publicly. In the mundane and quiet din of crickets at night, on the front stoop of her house, she tells him that she does not feel that way about him. She reiterates that she only feels friendship for him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Teana is having a large party to celebrate her sister’s new baby. There will be a lot of food, a lot of joviality, a lot of singing and dancing, and it will span an entire day — maybe longer.

Missandei tells Teana that she can procure candles and lanterns. She actually knows _the best_ shop for this. She realizes right away that her motives are impure, and she has underlying hopes and goals here — beyond candle and lantern procurement — but she has been dreaming about him with great frequency, and it just makes her sad. She might as well stopover and see the real thing — and just feel worse about it all.

She really isn’t sure how long heartbreak is supposed to last. She remembers Daenerys actually moving on rather quickly after each iteration of heartbreak. Missandei maybe was under the misapprehension that _that_ was normal.

It doesn’t seem to be normal for her. She is still miserable. She still thinks about him constantly. She still hates that it has come to this. She hates that she misses him so much. She hates that the feeling just doesn’t end. She is probably an addict now, and she knows that seeing him will probably make it worse — or make this last longer — but fuck it. She just wants to see him and make it hurt more.

She takes Kojja’s boat — honestly because it is convenient and it left at the right time. And then she quickly learns that Kojja is wonderful, and Kojja is really proud of her boat. Missandei learns that Kojja learned all about sailing from her father, who descends from generations and generations of sailors. Kojja knows everything about the water and how to read the sky.

Missandei begrudgingly admits to herself that sure, yes. This is most likely _the best_ boat.

And at the end of the journey, Kojja refuses to take her money. Kojja doesn’t invoke his name at all, but she does say that she makes the trip between the two island clusters pretty regularly. The addition of Missandei on board doesn’t change Kojja’s schedule or routine at all.

  
  
  
  
  
  


His parents are holding their breaths and pretending like they are not staring as he fucking does what he always fucking does with unerring regularity, day in and day out.

He writes down Missandei’s order. He consults on what she needs, and he tells her that she really does not need fifty candles and fifty lanterns. That is crazy and that is a lot and someone will trip over something and get hurt and her friend’s party will just be burned down to the ground. It will be very embarrassing for everyone involved. She should actually cut everything in half and then add a few long burning torches. They are high off the ground so children won’t trip over them. Children never fucking look where they are running. Also, she should also buy some fuel cans of tallow if her party ends up going very long.

He leans deeply over the table and purses his lips as he looks down on the page. He asks, “Will you need to keep food warm? I can give you some warmers. Very useful to have.” He hums and he writes that down. He mutters, “Oh, you should just take them. We have a lot.”

She more or less just stares at him, kind of awed to watch him _do this_. This is _his life_ now. She more or less readily agrees to all of his recommendations. She says, “It all sounds _great!”_ with a lot of enthusiasm.

It makes him wince actually. And that makes her feel a little sheepish.

  
  
  
  
  
  


His parents notice her lingering — his parents make eye contact with each other over this shared observation — and then his parents go make themselves busy outside so that the two of them can have privacy.

It’s when the two of them start discussing prices that they start arguing again. He basically tries to give her all of the items for free. And she is resolutely not having any of that. She keeps demanding that he give her the real price of things. He lets out a low grunt and tells her it is fine. They have a lot of candles. He gestures to the stuff behind him, all around him — like she is an idiot who cannot evaluate what is coming in through her eyes. She can see that he has a lot of candles. She also understands that this is how his family makes their money. And she earns money. This is a very basic truism in life. She wants something. She procures it through an exchange of goods. Why is he not getting this?

“No, I understand what it means to _buy things_ ,” he tells her hotly, with this thin veneer of patience. He generally hates it when she accidentally talks to him like he is stupid. “I am trying to tell you — it won’t bankrupt us to give you a few fucking candles.”

“It is more than a few,” she says. “Just let me pay for them.”

And then he flatly just says, “I know how much money you earn from the school.”

She slowly responds with, “Yes, you do. So you know I can afford candles and torches.”

This response absolutely _bothers him_. He mutters, “You are being so stubborn. And for what? For _pride?”_

“You are being an ass,” she throws back. “And for what reason? Is it fun for you?”

“Yes,” he says sarcastically. “Very fun.”

And then his face cracks into a smile. He’s been sweating a little bit because this argument with her is stressing him out, so his face has this sheen to it that gives him an attractively bright glow.

A laugh accidentally sneaks out — it surprises the both of them. He has to lean down and bury his face in the crook of his elbow to muffle it. He is laughing because he realizes the situation is ridiculous. He is trying to help her. She, in turn, is trying to help him and his family. And they are both getting angry over it.

And after he recovers — with a throat-clearing cough and one last chuckle — he looks over her invoice. And then he starts writing down numbers in quick succession. He is muttering, “You want to pay full price for this shit? Fine. I can do that for you.”

  
  
  
  
  


He packs up her candles and lanterns and helps transport them to Kojja’s ship. He stores the items below deck, where it is cool, so that the candles will not melt before their intended destination. He mutters something under his breath to Kojja, who follows him below deck with heavy footsteps. Missandei can hear them laughing together. She can also see Kojja swat him in the stomach with the back of her hand, in agreement about something.

When they notice her staring, Missandei quickly averts her eyes and pretends that she is intently interested in and examining the wood grain on the railing.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy and Grey live separate lives for a while. They find that no one fully gets them, and they find that the homes they came back to are not completely well-suited to the kind of people they are now. Life is rough like that. Grey runs into an old pal and is like WHOA about it. The candles Missy brought to a party are a big hit! Grey learns that he is great at something else besides killing people. Good for him! Missy finally musters up the guts to say something true and direct, maybe for the first time in life.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She finds that she actually does not enjoy teaching children languages very much. They generally never get very advanced in any particular language because the children, their parents, and the school do not particularly value her skillset — and in a benign way, not a malicious way. To them, it does not make much sense to learn the languages of foreign lands and of foreign people that they will never see. That is because nearly none of them aspire to leave Naath. She has found that she must have always been an odd anomaly in Naath, with her hyper literacy. She has found that her people are very happy overall — but rather insular and not particularly curious.

She keeps learning that knowledge tends to make people unhappy — because knowledge begets nuance, and there is often pain in nuance.

She does not feel persecuted or oppressed here, but she does feel dragged down by the lack of discipline. This might be a thing Missandei has to be grateful to Daenerys for — for showing her what ambition looks like on a woman.  

She complains about behavioral issues that one of her male students have to Pavi. One of her students keeps talking over her during lessons because he is bored and does not want to be in her class.

Pavi smiles to try and smooth the anxiety and tension that is coming off of her. He suggests that she just stop thinking about it — school is over. Tomorrow is another day.

She sarcastically mutters, “Why do you not also tell me that boys will be boys?”

She says it in the Common Tongue so that he doesn’t understand how bitter she is becoming. He wouldn’t understand it even if he comprehended it anyway.

  
  
  
  
  
  


How he felt about Daenerys started to change even before he closed the trench behind his Unsullied and left them die in order to protect the retreat, in order to preserve the lives of white men, in order to ensure the proliferation of a specific kind of people on that inhospitable, cold, foreign soil, in order to install her as queen of all people.

Except that the survivors who were left exclusively carried a certain visage.

He mourned the loss of his men for a long time after. He dwelled and lingered in it because he felt that if he didn’t, then no others would.

He saw what had happened to the Dothraki. There was none left to honor their sacrifices. She was too focused on King’s Landing to allow for the full one-hundred days of death rites that Dothraki customs require. She was also too focused on King’s Landing to remember to notify khal widows that they were to make their way to Dosh Khaleen — again, as Dothraki custom dictates.

It made him think that if he had died in battle — there might have been none left to carry out Unsullied death rites — the homage to their goddess. The Unsullied might have been given Westerosi death rites for the sake of expediency — which would have been tantamount to the desecration of their bodies.

He just couldn’t get his mind past that hurdle. It cemented a decision that had coalesced in his subconscious before fully revealing itself to him. It is why he approached Missandei and presented her with two options. He didn’t know at the time, that he was going to lose her anyway.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The other Summer Islanders — particularly the women — know about and refer to his injury in casual conversation. They know because he is not at all the first Unsullied man who managed to find his way back home. He is actually among the last. Their culture has been conditioned to look out to the sea for foreign ships every day now. There is a generation of people who look to the water, wondering if their sons have finally come back.

He does a stunned double-take when he runs into Dogkiller while he is out running errands with his father.

The other man actually cracks a shocked, grateful smile and — rather than taking a step forward toward one another in a show of familiarity — they have not been conditioned to do this at all — Dogkiller presses the flat of his hand hard over his heart and tilts his chin down slightly. His eyes are watery as he says, _“Torgo Nudho.”_

His father patiently waits silently — and attentively — as he more or less fades in this well-worn routine that he has not engaged in, in _years_ now. He gets a status update from his third in command.

His feet spread shoulder-width apart. His hands fold together behind his back. He looks resolutely straight ahead. He switches language to Low Valyrian as he if never stopped speaking it. In an efficient call-and-response style of information exchange, he learns that Dogkiller is actually fairly settled in. The man has been living on the island of Omboru for the past number of years with his mother. He goes to the Sweet Lotus Vale port every few months to meet a shipment of lumber. Dogkiller tells Grey Worm that he is a builder — a carpenter — now.

He also tells Grey Worm that his name is actually “Jhaguo” now.

In the Common Tongue, Grey Worm mutters, “Oh. It will be hard for me to stop calling you Dogkiller.”

Dogkiller knows enough of the Common Tongue to smile. He has finally recovered enough from the shock of running into Grey Worm that he reaches out a hand and places it on his former leader’s shoulder. He says, “This one always Dogkiller. To Commander.”

“No,” Grey Worm mutters. “That is ridiculous. I should learn to call you by your real name.”

Dogkiller laughs.

And then he looks around the quad of merchant shops — his eyes scanning the loitering bodies for someone else familiar. He asks, “Missandei? Where?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


The candles and lanterns actually end up being the unexpected focal point at the party. So many of the party guests — people that she has not met yet or people she does not know well — come up to her in a consistent stream to ask her about the candles. They are marveling at how well and clean the candles burn, how well they transport, and how long they last. At the end of the party, guests actually start stealing the candles as politely as they can muster. There are not enough candles for everyone, so some individuals are left bereft. They ask Missandei how they can get their own premium candle and how much one costs.

She explains to a bunch of people that the candles burn long and well because the candles are made from mixture of animal fat and beeswax. They do not have candles like these on Naath because they do not kill or eat animals and they do not consume honey or disrupt bee hives. Their candles are made from delicate nut oils and run the risk of spilling over all the time. Nut oils are also very labor intensive to press, so candles tend to be very expensive in Naath.

The Naathi have few scruples about candles made from dead animals when they learn how much they cost. The animal candles are much cheaper than Naathi candles.

They ask her if she can procure another shipment of candles. They tell her that they will pay her for her troubles. Even paying her for animal candles would be cheaper than buying Naathi candles. They tell her, in awe, that they did not realize that such violent, peace-hating people have the capability of making such beautiful things.   

She knows they mean no offense at all, but the words sting nonetheless. She has to stop herself from correcting them — because that is not the Naathi way — she has to stop herself from heatedly telling them all that he was and is capable of so many great and wonderful things, things that none of them can even fathom.  

  
  
  
  
  
  


After being propositioned for sex by yet _another_ temple priestess, he is sick of it enough to just harshly bark at them to leave him the fuck alone as he walks by their open doors. His brother laughs — grasping onto his body and pressing a placating palm on his pounding heart. His brother tells him that he’s so hot-headed — which was not really ever a trait he has ever previously associated with himself. But he is just one person — and he does not know how much one person is meant to withstand _this shit._

His brother calmly reminds him that the priestesses are just trying to commune with the gods — with him. They are just trying to help him.

He actually rejects this. He rejects the logic. He rejects the religion — which sometimes hurts their parents because sometimes it is like he is rejecting them — but they must understand that he hasn’t lived here his entire life. They must understand that he spent decades of his life believing an entirely different thing. They must understand that just because they have him back, that he is not the same as how they remember. They have to know that he is never going to be same ever again.

At the ports, they meet Kojja, who has her men carefully unload a shipment of a variety of Naathi plants. He will grind down herbs, bark, and flowers for their colors. He has figured out that he can charge more money for candles if he dyes them. He has figured out that he can charge even more if he makes colorful candles from the molds that Dog Killer carves for him. The candles then become decorative and artful, not just utilitarian.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Missandei ends up befriending Kojja because it seems like an utterly terrible idea to do so — so naturally she jumps in headfirst.

Missandei finds Kojja to be . . . utterly admirable. Kojja walks with a swagger — with an earned sort of confidence that is propped up on experience and expertise. Kojja is the leader of a devoted crew. She dresses like a man — while also commanding the respect of men. The hilt of a knife peeks out of the waistband of her pants. Her exposed left forearm is wrapped in a swatch of leather — an archery wrist guard. Kojja is always battle-ready. The muscles in her arms and shoulders ripple when she nocks an arrow and pulls it taut. Kojja is physically strong and battle-ready.

Missandei understands why he would like Kojja. Kojja is a lot like him. Kojja is a captain, a leader like he is.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He was still a very young man when he was freed by Daenerys. He took it at face value, when she told him he could choose freedom. The gravity of her grace was overwhelming and — having known nothing but hatred and pure evil — she was this divine light that changed everything. He could not look away from that.

But now he knows that the choice they thought they had was an illusion. There was no choice. They were conditioned to choose what they chose. They chose to stay and fight for her. But how could he choose anything else when all he been conditioned for his entire life was to lay it down and give it up to a foreign power? Was he supposed to just put down his armor and his shield and his spear and just leave to _do this?_ Would he have even been capable of making candles when he was younger and more ignorant of the true cost of war?

He still thinks that leaving was the first authentic thing he has ever done in his life. He thinks that choosing to step away from war because he finally saw it as senseless was the first conscious action he has ever committed with such pureness in belief. He knows it was real — because it was _so fucking hard_ to leave.

He still regrets some of it to this day. He still feels like he is not a good man because of it. He still knows he is undeserving of her. He still knows he failed. He knows he is a coward. He knows he deserved to die, and he should have died with his men. He knows he is selfish, because he loved her too much so he took her away with him. These are the things that his family does not understand about him. He is not good. He is actually nothing.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Her mouth hangs open in awe when she sees his family’s shop again. It has actually doubled in size — they have bought out the next store over because they needed the space.

He takes her sudden appearance again in stride — or he pretends to. He actually feels like he is dying inside because he has been thinking about her a lot lately — or all the time, actually.

He says, “So you need more candles?” It’s a joke.

But she responds with, “Actually, yes. A lot of them.” She smiles at him. “I’m here to negotiate pricing with you. I will accept free this time, if you are still offering. For that one.” She points her chin to a really beautiful, bright red candle that is molded into bird motif.

“So, that is not free,” he says plainly, pulling out an invoice sheet and placing it on the table in front of him. “It takes a really long time to make. You would really bankrupt us if I gave this to you at no cost.”

The sound of his voice — the sound of how unimpressed with her he currently is — it makes her ache inside. No one else in the entire world talks to her like how he talks to her. He talks to her like he expects her to rise to the occasion. She used to think he was too combative sometimes. Now she just deeply misses the sound of his dissatisfaction.

So decides to tell him. Out loud and to his face.

She says, “I've miss you. I really, really miss you. _So much.”_

And then she just starts crying.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey is really bad at consoling crying women, but luckily, Missy finds this trait in him kind of alluring and attractive. Boy becomes OBSESSED with whale oil, and his lady has to basically put up with that nonsense this entire chapter. Missy stumbles onto a second career and a hidden talent she didn't know she had. And then there might be some sexual tension up in here FINALLY.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He still does not know how to console women who are distraught and crying in front of his face, so he just freezes in place — he is actually frozen in a psychological kind of terror because he just wants _the crying to stop_.

She just continues sniffling and fanning her hot face with her hands, to no avail — and he just continues standing there with an invoice in front of him, staring at her dumbly. She keeps releasing these soft, anguished-sounding hiccups as she fights to regain her composure.

Things don’t snap back into motion again until his mother re-enters the shop with a customer — sees a crying woman in front of her son — quickly assesses what is going on — and then walks over and lightly slaps her son in the side of his face. She tells him to _go fix this_ and reminds him that this is bad for business. She gives Missandei a fortifying squeeze of the hand.

And then she returns to her customer.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He tries to help her calm down by giving her a coconut that he buys from a friend nearby, that he quickly hacks open with a machete. His very simple logic is that she loves coconuts. This will cheer her up.

She is sitting on a rickety chair underneath an awning — he tried to put her in shade so that she is comfortable — also so that it’s maybe dark and shadowed enough that passersby don’t take too much note of how she is _losing it_ right now. She clutches the coconut ball to her stomach as she sniffles, but she does not take a drink. He thinks that she is kind of missing the point here.

So he tells her that she’s meant to actually consume the coconut. He looms over her with his arms crossed, and he tells her it will hydrate her body. It will replenish the water that she is losing through the tears — through the uncontrollable crying.

She pitches forward, sloshing some of the coconut water onto her lap and her hands. She jolts forward because a laugh ejects itself out of her throat, starting from deep in her belly. She starts gasp-laughing as she also continues dripping tears down her face. She laughs because he is just so fucking _perfect_ sometimes.  

He’s watching this. He does not know what to do. He’s a little concerned she’s suffering from heatstroke. He’s also a little concerned she has lost her mind. He repeats, “You are supposed to drink the coconut. You like them. Remember?”

Kind of like how a cloud passes over the sun, her laughter gradually takes over her face and clears out the remnants of the crying. She is just smiling widely now. She lifts up the heavy ball in her damp lap a little bit. She giggles as she unsteadily brings it up to her mouth. She says, “Yes, I remember,” as she sways, sloshing more of the liquid onto her thighs and knees.

He groans watching this. Because it just looks really inefficient, and she is spilling _so much_. He reaches a hand out. He palms the bottom of the coconut and helps hold it steady for her. She is still stuck in her laugh attack, as she starts pulling in sips.

He says, “Try your best not to choke.”

And that makes her laugh again — and _harder_. Which makes her accidentally inhale up water. Which completely fulfills what he just prophesized. She starts hacking — coughing loudly and violently, trying to expel the water from her lungs as he grasps onto the coconut, takes it away from her, and puts it on a small table.

And then he starts lightly pounding the flat of his hand in between her shoulder blades, to help her get it all out. She can hear him sighing at her.

  
  
  
  
  
  


With the empty husk and shell in her lap, with her hands and nails digging in the hole for bits of coconut meat that she is sharing with him, she rambles at him and tells him about how popular his candles were at the party. People _loved them_ because they are such nice candles. She tells him about how she explained to the guests that his candles are made of animal fat, which stays solid even in the heat.

“It goes soft,” he corrects. “It is the wax — that makes it stay solid. I have been trying to figure out the right mix — for the molds. Beeswax is hard to procure and more expensive than tallow because of limited quantity — there are not enough bees — so we cannot make all-wax candles. It would cost too much. I am looking at procuring whale oil. You can extract wax from that kind of oil — and would be less labor than beeswax. I think. I am not sure. I am trying to decide whether to try. Have to buy in large quantities — so if I am not correct, it is expensive. My mother and father are unconcerned about the cost. But I tell them it will be costly mistake. But they do not understand — or care. They say I will figure out. I have been trying to find books to learn about processing whale oil. But there is not much — maybe we have never done this on the islands before. So I might not — maybe I cannot figure out. I tell them this. But they do not listen. They tell me just to buy and try. They say I will figure out.” He grunts. “It is bothersome.”

“What is?” she says, bypassing his entirely lengthy and unnecessary and absolutely amazing speech on whale oil. “Their faith in you?”

He scoffs. He crosses his arms again. “It is not faith. That is not what faith is. It is actually trust.”

She blinks. Her lashes flutter a little bit.

She says, “Nudho, that sounded . . . kind of optimistic!” She is smiling. “That was a nice thing you just said!”

“I say nice things now — all the time,” he responds in a deadpan.  

And then he finally cracks a smile.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They sit under that awning for a couple of hours, talking with one another. It is so self-indulgent, and he feels so guilty about not working, but no one comes out to snap at him to go back to work — not his mother, not his father, not his brother, not his sister.

He keeps an eye on the front of the shop as she tells him all about her students — particular the ones that give her trouble. He tells her that young people are entitled and lazy, so he is not surprised that she has obnoxious students. He suggests to her to just fail the terrible student, if he is doing so badly. He suggests that perhaps she speak to his parents and see if it matters to them that their son is an ass.

She used to find his very direct and very heavy-handed problem-solving to lack nuance and misunderstand the way people might feel. Now, she is slightly older and wiser, so she is utterly charmed by it. She sees it as honorable and respectful, to constantly meet people head-on instead of speaking in whispers because one is too afraid to be truthful.  

She tells him about her new house and where she put all of the meager things she has acquired.

Listening to her talk about her new home on Naath is kind of like a punch in the stomach for him. It makes him lose his breath for a second. It makes him really, really fucking sad actually. But she seems pleased with her progress and her accomplishments, and he cannot take those things away from her, so he smiles through the pain. He listens. And he hums out soft agreement over the things she says, to encourage her to keep on talking.

She mostly just tells him where she has placed his candles in her home. She shyly tells him his candles emit good light, and she uses them to read at night, so that she doesn’t have to burn in the hearth — it is too hot for that.

She asks him if he likes where he currently lives.

He admits that he does. But he also tells her about how he wants to live apart from his parents, but he is having a particularly hard time telling them so. He is not used to living the way that he currently is — with so many people intimately gathered under one roof. He explains that he intends on staying really close by — of course he has to — because of the shop. But he would like the luxury of being able to sit in silence in his own space. He would like to have a time of day when he is not constantly interrupted or bombarded with questions or conversation. He also confesses to her that he misses having his own independence. Just like he has missed her.

He says, “I have missed you, too. Very much.”

It takes her a beat to register the words — because she is not expecting them. And when she hears them and comprehends them, her face crumples immediately. She immediately starts crying again.

He says, “Stop it. Shit. Not again.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I am a mess.”

And then he sighs as she laughingly wipes at her eyes with the heels of her hand. He explains, “That’s why I did not say it back — right away. I did not want this again.”

He gestures to her lap — abstractly. She knows that he means the sad emotional outpour. He did not want that.

  
  
  
  
  


So she starts to visit him — regularly — with great frequency. They develop a routine because she goes on candle and lantern runs often. Kojja transports the goods. Missandei sits on the top deck of the boat and lets the salt water and sun warm up her face as she waits patiently until she can see him again. She creates order forms to keep things orderly. The quantities that she needs to buy wholesale from him increases and increases as word of mouth spreads about his candles. She takes a cut of the profits — a number that they both decide is fair. She thinks it’s too generous, and she thinks he’s still trying to take care of her in the way that he does — and she is just too tired to argue with him because he keeps insisting that he really is not giving her special treatment.

The money she makes selling his candles and lanterns is enough for her to stop teaching, if she wants to — so she reduces her work hours to just one day a week — just for fun, and just for the students who actually want to learn the most.

He figures out the whale oil thing. He tells her about the process in great detail sometimes — over a shared meal. Sometimes she arrives late in the day and has to stay overnight at an inn. Oftentimes, he stays back in the city center and passes the time with her. Other times, they walk the twenty minutes to his parents' house, and she sleeps in his bedroom while he sleeps in the common room. All the time, she buries her face in his blanket and his pillow, as her heart aches, and she tells herself that it is all right. She reminds herself that she still has him in her life — but in a different way now. And it has to be enough for her.

He tells her about the cost versus the gain in processing whale oil so that it is a wax — they both have discovered he has a really good mind for numbers and an even better mind for aesthetics. They both discover she has a talent for selling that is, honestly, quite shocking to the both of them. They both start planning together — figuring out how to further optimize and grow his family business and what used to be her side-but-is-now-full-time hustle.

He _obsesses_ about his work. It reminds her of how he used to be with the Unsullied — he used to obsess over his men, too. He used to obsess over being the best, in order to preserve their numbers, because that sort of thing always mattered to him. It was his innate defiance against all of the masters. The masters did not care because the masters saw them all as expendable. He hated them for that. He committed to knowing who his men were, because he believed there needed to be someone still alive who remembered them and their sacrifices.

She is honestly so bored by all the intricate whale oil processing stuff — he talks about it all the time — just like how he used to get so bored whenever the conversation used to turn to butterflies, so she supposes that turnabout is fair play.

However, she just loves watching the changing expressions on his face as he rambles on and on about how he is trying to figure out how to bleach the whale wax, so that the dye will show up more vibrantly and saturated. Staring at his face is still one of her favorite things to do.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She is there for moral support when he tells his parents that he is leaving the family home — but he is not planning on going far.

His parents actually take it very well. They immediately ask if he is going to be living with her again, then — because _why else_ would her presence be required at this dinner?

He responds to this with, “Huh?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


He still refuses to step foot in Westeros again — that piece of shit rock full of shit people — so he goes out of way to procure different kinds of whale oil. He has developed a very deep expertise on it and thus, he has become very, very discriminate. He purchases voyage on the Cinnamon Wind with Kojja’s father, with Kojja herself on board. They are headed to the Great Moraq first, then an additional stop in Yin and some other ports before heading back home.

He will be gone for weeks, maybe a month or longer, so he leaves the shop in the care of his brother and parents — and he has to write down so many details and information about the shop so that they have reference materials. He now knows more about their business then the rest of his family does. He more or less threw his parents into early retirement, with his productivity and efficiency — and they are surprisingly not resentful of being rendered obsolete. They are just proud of him. They express it to him and others all the time.

He still is surprised by how unconditional their love for him is.

He has to tell Missandei he is going on the long trip — he makes it a point to tell her because he knows she hates it when he disappears on her without a word, and he has done it to her too many times in life already. It will hurt to tell her, because it hurts to leave her. But he has to. He knows he has to do this.

So he waits for her to arrive at the shop on the day that she is due. She is beaming at him so much when she sees him, and he has to cut that smile off her face by saying, “I have news.”

She knows him well, so her face falls. She says, “It is bad news,” as a statement, not a question.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She tells him that he needs a translator-slash-interpreter on his trip, rather than asks him. She starts to explain to him the difference between a translator and an interpreter, but he impatiently interrupts her and says that he already knows. He already knows because he fucking lived with her for years of his life and she literally talks about this shit _all the time_.

In the past, the way he complained at her used to make her feel very sensitive, like she thought he was very mad at her and she took it personally because she had this concept of how people in love talked to one another. They shouldn’t talk like how he sometimes does, therefore maybe his love wasn’t pure or strong.

But now, her mouth quirks into a half smile. She carefully places a hand on his sweaty shoulder. She lightly observes, “You are cranky right now.”

“Satee quit yesterday,” he says mutinously. “Fucking lazy child.”  

Satee is a young woman that he hired to work at his shop when school is not in session. Satee also was not scared or intimidated by him at all. She  just smacked her lips together and let her eyes wander around the room whenever he gave her very explicit, very detailed, and very precise directions.

And then she went and fucking did whatever she wanted, in her own stupid childlike way. He wanted to fire the idiot child right away, but his father told him that he needed to learn to have some more patience. His father told him there are many different types of people in the world. Not everyone understands or operates under the same kind of discipline and work ethic that he operates under.

“And now she _quits!”_ he snipes. “I give her a chance — and she _quits!”_ He huffs out an angry sigh. “What do I do! I have to leave!”

She squeezes his shoulder — to try and calm him down a little bit through touch. She remembers that he responds well to this sort of thing. She simply says, “Let your brother handle it.”

 _“What!”_ he barks, still hyped up from adrenaline. She remembers this about him, too — the energy that emitted off of him before a battle, before a fight.

As she stares at his angry face, she also remembers the way in which he used to drag her into bed to burn off some of his excess in energy.

“Let your brother handle it,” she repeats, fighting this sudden blushing. “Just let this be his problem. I know he will be glad to help you. He loves you.”

_“What!”_

He is shouting this out because it honestly did not occur to him — to just let this be his brother’s problem. He is still prone to taking on everything by himself. He is still prone to ascribing to the loneliness of leadership.

“There, problem solved,” she says calmly, smoothing her hand down his collarbone and across his warm chest.

She can feel his heart pounding underneath her palm.

The air between them grows a little thicker — or so she imagines it — as she lingers. She feels this heat, in the air between them — and maybe that is also something she is imagining self-indulgently. Maybe this is a one-sided feeling.

But sometimes she has a really hard time remembering why they are not together anymore. Sometimes she has a hard time understanding why she can’t still love him out in the open. Sometimes she wonders if she is just conditioned to sequester parts of herself in secret compartments. Sometimes she has a hard time remembering the differences between the two of them that were apparently so insurmountable.

“You’ll need an interpreter on this trip,” she tells him softly, making the decision. “I’ll go with you.”

He can feel his own heart pounding — they both can. He says, “All right. You can.”

“I just said I will,” she corrects.

“I know. I said you can,” he repeats.

“No, I just _told you_ I _will.”_

“Yes, I agree. I permit this.”

And then her frustrated gaze transfers from her hand on his chest to his eyes.

And then she sees that he is absolutely fucking with her.

She shouts, _“Nudho!”_ as she lifts her hand and slams it back into the center of his chest, as he simultaneously lets out this throaty, mean-spirited snicker.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey starts to figure out healthy, more direct communication with his lady, THANK GOODNESS. Sometimes he is too direct though, and Missy has to stand up for herself and be like, "OMG, stop yelling at me!" Everyone discovers Missy has a talent for negotiating. Grey finds it sexy. So, he reminds his lady that he's pretty much a hottie with a body.

  
  
  
  


 

The crew of the Cinnamon Wind drink when they are bored. They also drink because they have to — because the long, hot days incubate sickness in the water. Alcohol staves off the growth of bacteria.

They didn’t have to contend with this as much during that fateful trip from Essos to Westeros, all of those years ago — because of the different climates and the shorter distance of that particular trip.

The quarters are also less cramped, so they don’t have to live like packed fishes on top of each other. She has her own quarters. So does he. So does Kojja.

On the very first night, Missandei unblinkingly watches as Kojja gets progressively loosened by alcohol. She watches as Kojja throws her head back and laughs. She watches as he tepidly makes these wry jokes that sends Kojja into new peals of laughter, as Missandei shyly watches and hugs some flatbread to her chest, as she nibbles on the corners. She is still not dynamic in groups. She is still never the center of attention. She still does not know when is a good time to interject with a funny comment. She still does not always know which comments are funny to others.

She notes, however, that he has figured it out. He does things like reach out to blindly jostle Kojja’s shoulder and remind of her some past event that they went through together — making Kojja snort out more amusement. Missandei supposes that maybe he is better at camaraderie than she is — because he used to have that with the other Unsullied. She had nothing of the same sort. She had books. And Daenerys. And him.

She watches unblinkingly, when Kojja gets to her feet and loudly bids them all a good night. She watches as Kojja glances over her shoulder and says, “Are you coming?” in a sultry tone voice that Missandei immediately recognizes the intent of.

Her heart stops.

And then it throbs hard in her chest when Xhondo Dhoru laughingly stands up. The floorboards creak beneath his feet. His voice is a dark timbre, as he says, “Coming,” as his hand reaches forward toward Kojja’s.

And then they disappear together below deck.

And then it is just the last two of them left.

He looks up at the inky, clear sky. He looks at the stars.

He has to be a little bit drunk also, because he says, “When we were apart and I was missing you so much, I used to look up there — and I used to think that the sky does not care at all, about how I was feeling. And I used to wonder if you were looking up and seeing the same thing, too.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


She is still not the best at bartering, bargaining, and negotiating — so it is incredibly stressful for her, to have to translate the rapid-fire onslaught of Nudho’s extreme frustration.

He is being picky. The other side is wary that he is trying to cheat them. He is pissed that his honor is even being called into question. He thinks it has at least a little bit to do with the color of his skin — so he is being especially belligerent and rude with them.

Kojja is trying to be helpful by talking over him in the Summer Tongue, trying to explain to him that his communication style is not conducive to business. He is agitated that Kojja is talking to him like he’s an idiot, like he hasn’t also been to many, many different lands and communicated with many different cultures of people. He is enraged because he acutely knows what it sounds like and what it looks like and what it _feels_ like, when people look down on him. And he won’t stand for it anymore. He will never stand for it again. He snipes at everyone — in the Summer Tongue, in Low Valyrian, in High Valyrian, and in the Common Tongue — that he does not even give a fuck. He will tank and kill this deal right now — over this fucking disrespect.

He throws his finger out — points it straight at her, and he shouts, _“Translate_ that to them!”  

Missandei’s eyes go wide. She feels scared. And awkwardly caught in the middle. She feels all eyes watching her, as her jaw flaps up and down helplessly, as she is rendered temporarily mute.

Then she takes a deep breath in. She squares her shoulders. She sets her jaw. And then she opens her mouth and calmly speaks.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He can tell that she is trying to smooth things over by strategically _interpreting_ instead of translating. He does not need to know another language to know her. He knows her better than he knows anyone else in this world. He remembers that she used to do this all the time for Daenerys — and the masters. She used to edit down their petulant rage and anger. A key difference between him and her is that she would rather lean on diplomacy, and he would rather fight. He has come to see diplomacy as fucking trash. It always, _always_ happens at the expense of _them_.

Today, and even before, her interpretation irritates him, which is why he corrects her.

He snaps, “Missandei! Just repeat what I am saying, in the way that I am saying it! Tell these _infidels_ that I won’t go higher. Tell these shit-idiots their product is not worth what they say, and that I am _not stupid._ Tell these mongrel _dogs_ I know I do not fucking _need them._ They need _me._ And so I want them to go _fuck themselves_ for this _inconvenience.”_

Everyone is watching her in anticipation as she lets out this keening whine from the back of her throat as she looks at him kind of helplessly. Because that is _so aggressive_. She says, “Nudho — I can’t say that to them.”

“Do you know the _words?”_ he demands. _“_ Yes or no? _”_

“Well, yes.”

“Then _say_ them!”

“Nudho, will you stop _shouting_ at _me?”_ she pushes back. “I am not your enemy here.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


His eyes immediately go from hard and hateful to soft and tender when he hears her ask him to stop yelling at her. He feels gutted inside, that she has to ask him to stop being so fucking terrible to her — that he always requires this from her and makes her labor under this. He knows it is not fair to her.

In Low Valyrian, he softly tells her that he is so sorry for this. He softly tells her that he’s not angry at her at all. He cares about her very much. He tells her that he is just angry at everyone else.

“I know why you are angry,” she says to him, pressing her lips together in a grim and serious expression. “What did you want me to say to them again?” She reaches up and rubs her cheeks and ears vigorously, in comfort as she prepares for this. “Something about how they are infidels and mongrel dogs?”

He breaks out this brief, grateful smile when she says that. It shocks everyone — how his face can completely morph and change into something entirely different when his mood is light. He bites back a laugh — he avoids looking at her directly for this reason. He adds, “And also tell them that they should go fuck themselves.”

“Yes, all right,” she says, with determination. “I will tell them.”

  
  
  
  
  


His tactic does not work at all. In fact, the merchants are actually gravely offended when they hear, through Missandei, what he was saying to them. The deal dies on the spot — they all vow to never do business together ever.

He holds up his hand. He is letting Kojja’s archers know that everything is going to be fine, and no one has to die today. To Missandei, he says, “Tell them: Fuck you very much.”

She giggles at him. She’s shaking her head as she says, “Nudho. Really?”

He is laughing, too. He is gesturing for her to get on with it.

She thinks about it. Under her breath, she mutters, “That is actually a very creative and nuanced thing to translate. I need a moment to figure out the best way to put this.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


At dinner on their fifth night in the Great Moraq, she covers her face in shame and embarrassment, as everyone around her cheers loudly and holds up their cups to her. Kojja wraps her arm around Missandei’s chest from behind and pulls her into a backwards embrace. Kojja is trying not to laugh too much as she recalls the events of the day, the stunned silence that resulted when Vahari merchants proffered an extraordinarily high number that Missandei automatically and incisively cut in half because _that_ is _not_ how much that kind of whale oil should cost.

She actually was not translating for him. She boldly just took it upon herself to start setting terms. She just took over the dealings a bit carelessly. It’s because she knew they were trying to cheat him, and she was getting tired of watching people try to cheat him.

Also, she knows so much about whale oil now. That is all his fault.

Missandei groans out her motification again — she is so embarrassed because she was impulsive and she overstepped. She has never done this before in her life. She had never before spoken out of turn, never in front of the masters. She had never before spoken out of turn, never when translating and interpreting for Daenerys. Missandei used to pride herself on being very faithful and accurate to the intention of words. That used to be her preeminent value.

“We have so much whale oil to transport home now!” Kojja declares, holding up her wine cup. “Thank you, Missandei! For preventing us from witnessing another failed business dealing at the hands of Maroras!”

Missandei groans as they all laugh around her — she is groaning at the constant reminder of her bold self-indulgence.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He is strategically covering his own mouth in the heel of his hand, as he slouches in his chair on the other side of the table. He is trying not laugh at her too obviously. He knows it just makes her feel more self-conscious. He is trying to manage the way she continues to make him feel — and it just unfortunately grows and grows and grows. He is trying to tear his eyes away from her and her perfection for at least a second, because he is fucking just ridiculous now, in how transparent he is being.

He fights to remember the past. He fights to remember the bitterness inside of him. He works hard to remember all of the ways in which he has lost. He fights to hold onto the memories of how broken he is. He is having a really hard time remembering.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Things relax considerably after Nudho secures the whale oil that he so desperately wanted. He starts smiling again. He stops walking around glaring at all them like they fucked his mother in front of his face or something. He starts cracking jokes again. He starts finding enjoyment in the different local foods. He starts looking at ingredients in markets in awe again, trying to figure out what he should buy and try to cram into a candle.

The rest of the trip is on Quhuru’s schedule and for his purposes. They are just idle passengers as the ship hops from port to port in various dealings done on behalf of the Mo family’s clientele. Missandei’s calm presence, sharp mind, and her language skills actually prove to be extremely useful to them in negotiations that do not require Missandei to tell men to go fuck themselves.

Kojja starts making these comments on the sly about how she could use someone like Missandei on her boat, if Missandei ever would like a break from life in Naath, if Missandei ever tires of that one.

Kojja is grinning and has her thumb up and is hooking it in the direction of Nudho, who is not currently paying attention to them.

  
  
  
  
  
  


After they eat together, he gestures to the shore and he lets her follow him toward the crowded beach, where families and their children have congregated in the hot, bustling day. Together, they weave together through the tangle of temporary store fronts and markets.

She gasps and kind of jumps in surprise when a fat, live fish gets slapped onto a table and splashes her with droplets of fishy water as she’s walking by. She teeters into him — her hands automatically going up to grasp his bare arm as she turns her face away, just as a butcher cleaves the fish’s head clean off.

He laughs at her. But he also asks, “Are you all right?”

She nods vigorously — and then she just drops her hand and skims it down his forearm. She boldly links their fingers together, averting her eyes from his face. She thinks that they have been heading in this direction — they have been getting close like this again. She thinks that this is probably all right to do — and if it is not, she is sure that he will simply pull away from her, and it will be devastating. But at least — she will know how he feels, once and for all.

Her heart _burns_ and her eyes get wet when she feels his hand tighten around hers. She stares hard at the side of his face as he avoids direct eye contact with her. She holds onto him with strength, even as their palms sweat together — as he pulls her away from the dead fish, past the hissing sound of cooking meat, toward the sandy shore.

There, with sand underneath their feet, he says, “Swim?”

And then he smiles at her.

And then he drops her hand.

And then he takes off his shirt.

And then he runs into the ocean.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy has some real-talk with her man in the ocean and calls him out for his weakass tendency of talking in riddles and metaphors. FINALLY. Grey is really good at swimming. And saying he's sorry. And being an object of thirst. JK, he's not an object, guys. He's a person that elicits thirst.

  
  
  
  


He has been noticing that the past has been echoing — small moments from their history that keep remanifesting differently in the present. For one, he has been watching and listening to her translate between two entities in power, as he hangs back and watches. It is the same as it used to be — but then, not at all either.

He thinks that she must be noticing the same thing because how could she not?

He has also been seeing the way she’s been looking at him, and it is a fair bit like the way she used to look at him — shyly and curiously — with a little sadness. But it’s also significantly different now. They are older now. They know more now. They have been free for far longer now. They know important things about each other now. So he’s been thinking that she’s been also looking at him with this basic human hunger lately.

It took them so long to even understand the concept of coveting and of wanting — in a way wholly different from want of power and want of dominion.

So he doesn’t look back as he swims temporarily away from her and toward the sun. He doesn’t look to see if she is following because he assumes that she will do what she wants to from here on out.

  
  
  
  


Back on the shore, she is scrambling. She is alternating between taking off her clothes because of course she’s going to run in after him — and also looking around to look for thieves — because she had something like this happen to her while she was searching for him Yunkai. Honestly, he can’t just leave his possessions out here in the open like this. He should know better.

She is awkwardly holding onto her loosened pants, as she hollers out and gestures to a young man who is with a girl who looks industrious. Missandei holds out a coin to each of them. In-language, she tells them to watch her items for the next hour or so. If all of her items are secure when she comes back, she will triple the amount of the money she is giving them.

They eagerly agree.

She ties her money bag to her wrist with string. She drops her pants. She leaves all of her underwear on. She strips off her shirt. And then she is just _running_ into the water after him, splashing her face with salt as she tries to push frothy waves off — fruitlessly — with both of her hands and her eyes half shut.

  
  
  
  


He is floating on his back, when she finally catches up to him — panting from the exertion of swimming hard to get to him. He heard her splashing from a good distance away, so he’s been waiting for her.

This makes him remember what it was like, when they first arrived in Naath. This reminds him of that elation — the disbelief that they were going to finally get to start the rest of their lives together. However, today, it is now finally devoid of that dread that used to live in the back of their minds.

The salt water and the sun is burning her eyes — so he is a blurry mess to her currently. She is trying to wipe down her face with her fingertips, trying to get her face as dry as she can so she can better see him.

He is laughing at her. He is saying, “Missandei, your hair.”

He means that her hair is dripping water back into her face.

He mutters that he does not know what he’s going to do with her — as he swims up to her and carefully wets and smooths back all of her curls off of her face. She automatically grabs his wrists and holds his hands to her head. Their proximity to each other gets in the way of her treading water — she’s not as good of a swimmer as he is. In the past, she used to actually just hang onto him when she got tired. He used to swim the both of them around in the ocean. He used to promise that he was definitely not going to let her drown, because if she died, he would not have anyone left to talk to.

The case is not the same anymore. He has many people to talk to, so she’s not necessary to his life in the same way. But she is probably useful in other ways now — for one, he’s laughing at her, at the way she is wiggling underneath the water. She amuses him.

“I am really tired,” she finally confesses, panting a little hard, turning her face a little bit — debating internally over whether or not to press her lips into his palm.

“That is very unfortunate,” he says, his face serious. He is easily staying afloat, treading water with just his feet.

_“Nudho!”_

He suddenly laughs — as he automatically shuts his eyes, in anticipation of the slap of water into his face. The water hits his smile and drips off. And she’s about to reload when his hands submerge below the surface of the water, as they _finally_ make their way to her body.

She looks at him with such emotion — as she feels his fingers and palms cross over her hips and back. She feels her limbs get dragged across the smooth, warm water. She feels her heart just hammering in her chest and throbbing in her throat, as he gently guides her closer.

Her arms come up to carefully wrap around his bare shoulders.

And she does not know why they are apart anymore. She does not know why she has to keep pretending that it is all right with her. She does not know why they have to continue self-regulating like this. She does not know why she must continue to practice self-denial. She does not know why they are not together right now. She does not know what reasons he has for not being in love with her anymore — because she is still _so in love with him_.

“Hey,” he says quietly, as he holds her close to himself. “Relax,” he says soothingly. “You can stop swimming.”

  
  
  
  


She realizes they only have an hour — and she knows, through him — that children are undisciplined and untrustworthy. She does not want to go back to the ship almost naked, so she tries to track the time in her head as she quietly lazes against him, as she presses her nose into his neck and quietly chats with him. She knows she only has an hour — so she does not have that much time — to push their conversation into something that is actually substantive. She knows that she must.

They lose a few minutes to his mockery. He is mocking her swimming. He is telling her that for someone who was born on an island, she has this bewildering fear of water sometimes.

She says to him, “You are one to talk. You hate water.”

He scrunches his nose up. He says, “What? That is not right. I _love_ water.”

So she musters up the courage to remind him. She commits to memory — the feel of how his body touches against hers, and she softly reminds him that one time, he looked up at the sky full of remorse and resentment, and he just bitterly complained about how he hates getting wet. She tells him that it made her feel self-conscious and a little bit ashamed, because she felt that she was the cause of all of that — of him getting wet. Of his discomfort. Of his bitterness. Of the trajectory of his life. She tells him that she knows he hated living on Naath.

She says, “I am sorry I made you.”

“Oh,” he says softly. “It is all right. I am glad we lived there together.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” And then after a pensive pause, he says, “I am sorry I made you choose between me and Daenerys.”

“It is all right. Because even knowing what I know now — I would still choose you,” she confesses.

  
  
  
  


Their hands and feet go wrinkly out there, as they bob up and down along with the soft undulating waves.

He whispers into her ear. He quietly tells her he is so sorry for what he had become — just this embittered and angry person — instead of what she deserved, which is someone who was happy. He whispers out this secret — and tells her that that it was hard to stop killing — more than he expected. Killing is so grotesque and a better man would have been glad to not bear that burden, but he was not a good enough man. He tells her he was so ashamed of this fact about himself, so he did not tell anyone — not even her. He tells her it was hard for him to not be a soldier. It was hard to be normal and ordinary. It was hard not to hate. It was hard to exist without death hanging over his head. And he knew it was fucked up and that he’s all fucked up, so he kept it to himself — to spare her. And maybe to prevent her from learning the terrible truth about him.

He tells her, “I am sorry I pushed you away. I thought I was protecting you. From myself.”

  
  
  
  


She tells him that he should not have left her without a single word. She tells him that what he did was nearly unforgivable. Because it almost broke her. She tells him that she did not know if she could even live — without him.

And here, he grabs onto her shoulders and he pushes her back a little bit, so he can see her face clearly.

He says, “I thought you found someone else.”

Her brows knit together as she stares back at him. She forcefully says, “I _didn’t.”_

He says, “I _know.”_

He shakes his head — he has regrets.

He says, “I made a mistake.”

 

  


He can see better than she can — so he can see that the kids on the shore are getting impatient. They are circling their possessions, and they are considering abandoning their post because maybe the money will never come — maybe the money is not even worth more of this waiting.

So he tries to signal them. He waves his arm and he tries to flag them, to let them know that they are on their way back to shore.

He clears his throat and he says, “Come on,” as he presents his back to her. He means that she should hop on. He will swim the two of them back, just like how he used to.  

But she presses her hands into his back and she turns him around so that he faces her. She wants to resolve this before this ends. She wants to know where they go from here. She wants to know if they can go back — and if they cannot go backwards, which is what he is constantly always saying — that they cannot live in the past — then she wants to know how they are going to move forward.

She asks, “How do you feel — about me? Right now — how do you feel? What do you want us to be?”

  
  
  
  


He thinks that her question is stupid. How he feels about her is consistent. It more or less never changes too much. It deepens sometimes. It hurts sometimes. It feels amazing sometimes. It is painful sometimes. It aches sometimes. It is just a constant presence of his mind and his life. He feels the way he does about her whether or not they are together. He feels the way he does about her even when they are apart.

He tells her that what he feels for her is like the ocean. It is vast and huge — expansive and engulfing. It is powerful and full of strength. It is dark and opaque at times. It is blue and clear on some days. It is bottomless and deep. It is sometimes dangerous and murderous — it creates casualties and yields to death sometimes —

 _“What?”_ she interrupts impatiently. “How you feel about me is like _the ocean?”_ She is treading water again. She is shaking her head at him. She is looking at him with with a certain dissatisfaction. She says, “So, I am the ocean to you? I am a body of water that holds fish. Or, am I still your fear? Am I still the thing that murders and instills dread in you? Are you _hearing yourself,_ Torgo Nudho _?”_

He sighs. Because he is always under threat of disappointing her.

So he sharply releases a breath, and he just says, “I fucking love you. I have fucking loved you. I will continue to love you. It does not change. I just hurt when I am not with you. That’s what I meant. Ideally, I just want — I just want to be able to love you freely. And I want you to love me back again freely and — oh _fuck.”_

He reaches up and starts inadvertently rubbing salt into his eyes through his fingertips — because he is trying to clear away the tears. It is disgusting. Now _he_ is crying. This is probably something his subconscious always knew — below the surface. It probably always knew that this would happen with transparency. This is so disgusting.

He sighs. He feels pathetic. He shakes his head at himself. He sniffs. He starts to apologize for losing his stupid composure. He starts to says, “Sor —”

She grabs his face with both of her hands. His eyes widen in surprise, as she yanks him close to her again, as she slams and then fuses their mouths together again.

  
  
  
  



	10. ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey and Missy figure out what the next leg of their rest of their lives is gonna look like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG done! Writing this (and reading your comments) has been really therapeutic! Thanks for going on this journey with me!

  
  
  
  
  


With her eyes shut closed, with her palms pressed hard into his cheeks, she mutters that she loves him too — as he smears her admission right back against her mouth, as carefully holds onto her and kisses her back. He swallows up the syllables and the sound of her soft gasp. They take turns pulling back a little bit, to look each other in the face — kind of bashfully — kind of laughing a little bit at each other in relief and also in disbelief.

She clasps her hands around the back of his neck and closes the distance between the two of them again. Her mouth smiles as it makes contact with his lips again.

The kissing is audible even over the sound of the waves. It is both intimately private and wide open — transparently illuminated by the blue sky and bright sun.

She smears the tip of her wet nose into his cheek, feeling the scrape of stubble there. She pauses and holds onto him tighter, as a particularly strong wave lifts them up and then drops them back down. She feels his arm tighten around her.

She quietly says to him, “This is nice.”

He says, “It is,” as he takes his free hand and touches her face. He lifts up her expression, lets the light shine on it so he can see her better.

And then he dips back in and covers her mouth with his again. She hums out this contentment — she quietly repeats that it is so nice, implying that she has missed this a lot — as he slips his tongue into her mouth.

It changes the mood instantly.

And it’s a lot like the first time he did this to her.

Her heart starts pounding nervously — her body freezes in surprise — her eyes actually open, letting salt in, tearing up in a physical response. She holds her breath and stops breathing.

He gets psyched out by her surprise — he thinks that maybe he did too much too soon. He also wonders, in a panic, if maybe he completely misinterpreted what is happening here. Maybe their love is different now. He goes rigid and start to retreat because maybe he has a made a mistake.

And then she groans.

And then she softly says, “Oh.”

And then she starts kissing him hard. She starts sucking. She mindlessly wraps her legs around his body as she releases this heavy load of pent up frustration and this pain from the past few years — as well as just elation. She grabs his entire head in her arm. She jams her tongue into his mouth. She remembers what it was like to be with him. She remembers that this kind of kissing is the entrypoint to sex with him.

He pinches the tips of his fingertips into her skin, biting into her bottom and the thin material that is covering it.

They start to sink as they do this kind of kissing — because he loses himself to it — he forgets to swim.

When their chins dip below the surface, he accidentally sniffs up a jolting and burning clip of saltwater.

He breaks away from her with a gasp and a hacking cough — right into her face.

She flinches and shuts her eyes tightly.

He says, “Sorry! I am so sorry!” as he starts treading water again vigorously. He’s panting. He is staring at her a little hopelessly now — over his mistake and also over being confronted with her red, swollen lips and her unblinking eyes.

She is breathing hard, too, as she floats a little bit away from him and doggy paddles. She looks dazed and a little stunned — but her words are very clear and firm and concise, as she says, “Do you remember when you saw me naked in the river?”

He blinks. He says, “Uh, yeah?”

“Do you want to do that again?”

“Uh, what?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


He soon figures out that she means sex — she is asking if he wants to have sex again — and that was just a really odd way of asking him so. He dumbly responds and tells her it sounds fine to him — it sounds like a fine idea.

She nods at him. She says, “Shall we head back to shore? See if our clothes are still there?”

He says, “Yes,” as his mind and his body generally just go crazy, as he swims back to shore with her.

She opts not to hang off of him and let him do all the work — because of this new-old energy between them. She would rather not distract the both of them into drowning by pressing herself against him as he drags the both of them out of the water.

Besides, she _can_ swim.

  
  
  
  
  
  


On the shore, she digs into her bag for money and tosses the coins to the grateful kids after she thanks them. They imply to her that they think they should get extra because they waited longer than an hour — but she tells them to just go away. She is overpaying them as it is.

He does not understand the language, but he generally understands what is going on. He gestures for them to listen to her — to go the fuck away now. And thank you.

She boldly just watches him as he quickly dresses himself again. He nervously glances at her and their eyes connect for short, punctuated bursts before he tears his gaze away and keeps throwing his wet limbs into clothing.

She smiles at him. Because he is so adorable. She also smiles at herself, because she is doing a type of mental preparation right now.  

  
  
  
  
  
  


They are sticky from salt water, and she looks a little bit like a drowned rat — a very happy one — as they board the ship again. He looks normal because he is relatively hairless.

They have to wade through hours of conversation and then dinner with the rest of the crew after that, because the both of them are too awkwardly self-conscious — about letting the crew know what they want to go do together.

He has listen to story after stupid fucking story, coming out of Xhondo’s drunk stupid mouth, and he wants to crush Xhondo’s fucking windpipe down to dust.

They have to wait until after it is dark.

And then he has to pretend to go to his quarters, before there is enough time and space and distance for him to quietly sneak out.

She is already naked when he finds her. She opens the door like that, and he immediately rushes inside her room and shuts the door behind him. His eyes are wide, as he asked her what she was planning on doing — if it wasn’t him on the other side of the door.

Her voice is low and meaningful, as she says, “I knew it was you.”

After he gets over her penchant for exhibitionism — he takes a better look at her. He groans at the sight of her — at this sight again — because it has _been a while_. And he eagerly starts yanking off his own clothes.

She tells him that he tastes salty from the ocean. She tells him he tastes _really salty_ , as she runs her wet mouth and tongue against his body. She asks him if he remembers _this —_ if he sometimes thought about _this —_ when they were apart. Because she did. She has thought about _this_ a lot.

He laughs out his bewilderment, as he starts breathing heavier.

She whispers to him, “Stay quiet, all right? We are trying to be discreet, remember?”

He whimpers out this disbelief, as she smiles up at him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


After they get back to the Summer Isles, they have to problem-solve a lot of logistics together. They have to debate with each other, over whether or not it is smart, to rush ass-first into being together again.

She is delirious on sex with him again, when she suggests that he just take up a permanent post in her bed.

He takes her rather literally, so while lying down naked in bed with her, he tells her he honestly cannot do that. He has the shop. And all of this whale oil to make into wax. And he has his family. And he has this life and these responsibilities in the Summer Isles now. He reminds her that she has a whole life in Naath. He carefully tells her what she already knows — that the two places aren’t that far apart. They can visit each other. He can start visiting her, too. He offers that they can try that and see how it works and how it feels.

  
  
  
  
  
  


So she decides that they are just _done_ being apart from each other. She decides that they are just going to be together again because it’s what the both of them want.

After she brings all of her important things from Naath over on Kojja’s boat and puts them in the new house that they are sharing, they find that his parents are _constantly_ visiting. They have idle time because his business acumen is so great, so they get restless and bored. They show up to the house with food. They show up with trinkets. They show up with ideas. They show up because they had a thought they wanted to share. They show sometimes because they want see how the garden in the back is progressing.

She tries to get him to moderate his annoyance and his words. She tries to get him to remember that his parents are only doing this because they love him. They are not trying to suffocate him to death — like how he likes to think in his darker moments.  

She has to hold onto him sometimes, as if she is letting him seep the tension that he holds in his body — into hers. She has to kiss him slowly and languidly sometimes, to remind him that he’s not under threat of loss of anything anymore.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He often makes himself go with her when she visits Naath. He sometimes gives into a vegetarian diet for a few days at a time. Sometimes, he acts like the only reason he is there is to visit their other candle store and to check on the workers.

But really, he makes himself a common fixture in Naath because he knows that it makes her happy — and he fucking loves her.

He sits around and gamely talks about butterflies with her friends, as she holds his hand tightly under tables. She’s giving him strength. She’s giving him the strength to act like he gives a shit.

  
  
  
  
  
  


He discovers that she cries in her sleep sometimes — and this is something new and completely alarming. She didn’t used to do this the first time they were together.

When he mentions it over breakfast — after the first night that he encounters the sleep-crying — she sheepishly tells him that she dreamt that she arrived home — and he was gone again.

He looks at her sadly. He says, “Missandei,” as he pulls her into his arms.

  
  
  
  
  
  


It is completely a foreign custom that no longer exists in her culture. It is a foreign custom the way that they are doing it. But they keep grasping onto each other and marveling that it is like how it was before — but it is better now. It is deeper now.

They tie themselves to each other symbolically. For sentimental reasons. Also so she can relax and be more assured that he is never going to fucking leave her ever again. Also for the ease of transferring over part of the family business to her. Also so that his parents finally stop hassling the both of them over this — so that his mother can just stop dropping her passive-aggressive comments about how she wishes she could tell her friends that she has a second daughter.

Afterward, he gets drunk on marriage wine.

His brother made that up — there is no such thing, but he was gullible and drank a lot because he is just so fucking _happy._

He holds her in his lap. He humors Dogkiller — Jhaguo — as Jhaguo tells the wedding guests that Torgo Nudho might be the first Unsullied in history to have gotten _this drunk_ and to have taken a wife — all in one day.

He quietly laughs into her neck and her shoulder and her cheek as these terribly exaggerated and untrue stories about him get traded around by their friends and family, in front of a burning beach fire.

He falls asleep underneath her, on the sand, because he is so drunk. He passes out right after he loopily tells her that he started drinking because of her — so it is all her fault he is like this.

She exchanges glances with his mother, who rolls her eyes and then eases herself into standing position. His mother tells Missandei that he is Missandei’s problem, forever now.

Missandei lets the both of them stay out there, long after the last wedding guest has left. She listens to him snore quietly, with her hand pressed over his steady heartbeat. She curls her body into his warmth and shuts her eyes, too. She falls asleep, too.

  
  
  
  
  
  


She snaps back awake — hours later — with the sky dark and the ocean black and invisible, except for the roar of the waves and also the way they are drenched and the way he has leapt up and is screaming her name.

He trying to yank her to her feet with his hand clasped tightly around her forearm. She is dazed and trying to catch up to what is happening.

The tide had risen while they were sleeping.

And he is saying, “Missandei! Why! Why are we — are you trying to drown us! Why aren’t we inside and in bed! What — what time is it! Missandei, what are you doing! Come here. Are you all right? Are you wet? Missandei! Why are you _laughing!”_

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
